New Polls Raise Chance of Electoral College Tie

[apples and oranges]

If Mr. Obama’s overall standing holds in its current position, he should have no trouble winning some of those states, perhaps along with others like North Carolina. But suppose there is a deterioration in his polls between now and Nov. 6 — or that the polls have overestimated his standing across the board. And so Mr. Obama wins the states where he has at least an 85 percent chance of victory in the forecast, but no others. Then we’d be left with the following map:



If you add up the electoral votes in that case, they come out to Obama 269, Romney 269: an exact Electoral College tie. The election would then be thrown to the House of Representatives, which would cast votes based on the provisions of the 12th Amendment.

Mitt Romney would probably win such an election, because Republicans will probably control a majority of state delegations in the incoming House of Representatives. (The forecast model draws lots and awards the election to Mr. Romney 80 percent of the time in such cases.)

But it would surely come with tremendous controversy, especially if the 269-269 tie came in an election in which Mr. Obama had won the popular vote.

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/01/new-polls-raise-chance-of-electoral-college-tie/

[Ter]

1. I would love to see one in my lifetime

Gives us something to tell the grand kids. The Senate votes anyway, right?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

4. The House Does And We're Cooked

Too bad there's a 1 in 200 chance that will happen.

[ProSense]

5. It's not going to be this time. n/t

[still_one]

6. No it's the house, and theoretically it doesn't even need to be those running

[DonViejo]

7. Did you read the portion of the article posted above?

The House votes, NOT the Senate

[DemocratSinceBirth]

10. Somebody Failed Civics

.

[Codeine]

25. What high school did you go to? nt

[HereSince1628]

2. The great thing about the political season is you get to learn

all the freaky scenarios that are possible, it's almost as fun as learning that 4 strike outs in a baseball inning is a real possibility.

[apples and oranges]

21. Still, I find it really troubling to think that in a tie, the House

picks the winner. Or anyone besides voters picking the winner. While that has almost no chance of happening this time around, I'm thinking about the future.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

23. but that happened in the Braves game the other night...

no joke. most people don't know that can happen. technically there's no limit to the number of strikeouts... as long as first base is open.

sP

[bongbong]

30. OT, but more crazy baseball trivia

There is a way to have a complete, legal 9 inning baseball game with only 9 pitches.

Do you know how?

[HereSince1628]

33. Nope that one's hard to get my head around...

[DemocratSinceBirth]

3. Didn't Silver Put The Chance At .05% Or 1 in 200?

.

[Chellee]

14. .06% So the headline is true and yet misleading.

It's up from .03% last week.

So that's to say, infinitesimal and not happening.

[longship]

29. Ahem! .05% is one in two thousand!

Not one in two hundred.

.06% is about 1 in 1667.

It's arithmetic DUers!
Make sure to get yours right, please.

[JoePhilly]

8. Not happening ... Obama will win CO, NV, FL, NC, VA or Iowa. And he only needs ONE of these.

[Drunken Irishman]

9. The chance is less than a percentage point. I don't get Silver's fascination with this story...

Seriously. Why should anyone worry about less than a percentage point of a chance? It's not going to happen. This is Silver pushing for page views and filler articles ... nothing more.

[JoePhilly]

11. YUP ... Mitt's path to 270 requires he win every battle ground state.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

12. First The Drudge Crapola . Now Nightmare Scenarios With A One In Two Hundred Chance Of Occurring

.

[budkin]

13. Totally misleading... look at the states Mitt would have to win... he's nowhere close to that

I love Nate but this analysis is pointless

[DemocratSinceBirth]

16. That's Why Nate Said There Is .06 Chance Of It Occuring.

166-1 doesn't seem like good odds...

[WI_DEM]

15. Oh good grief! Don't they have anything better to do? A new poll in VA had Obama up by 8

today, and so take Virginia out and give it to Obama and he wins. The media has too much time on their hands discussing 'the horse race' and spends too little time discussing issues.

[WillyT]

18. THANK YOU !!!

[salvorhardin]

17. Ooo... Scary!

Fortunately, such an outcome remains quite unlikely. Of the 25,001 simulations that we ran on Monday, a 269-269 tie came up in 152 model runs, or about 0.6 percent of the time.

Still, this probability has roughly doubled from a few weeks ago, when the chances had been hovering at about 0.3 percent instead.

OMG! The odds have doubled from three out of a thousand to six out of a thousand. That's it, I'm moving to Canada!

[mucifer]

19. I think Nate LOVES the words "what if". He just enjoys playing with the numbers. nt

[Proud Liberal Dem]

20. That map is waaaaaaaay too kind to RMoney

But for voter disenfranchisement/suppression, there'd pretty much be nothing other than voter turnout to keep President Obama from having another electoral blowout in November. I still don't think that the map will look like this come Election Day. I think Nate's been sampling too much of his product. I'm not going to lose sleep over a 0.6% possible outcome. When you see poll after poll putting you behind in almost every demographic (in some cases, FAR, FAR behind), when you read stories about donors starting to pull out, when you read stories about the campaign pulling out of states they know they can't win, it's hard to take seriously the prospect of some kind of major turnaround that makes the map look like this. Frankly, if RMoney were to somehow win this election, it would be one for the history books. I don't think that anybody would believe it.

[MFM008]

22. they did this in 08

I remember clearly they mooned about this scenerio. Didnt happen, aient gonna happen.

[Dawson Leery]

24. Nevada is going for Obama.

Multiple polls are out showing him leading by 8-12 points in the state.

Also, Virginia has moved too far away from Romney.

[RagAss]

26. And if pigs could fly I'd stay indoors more.

[graham4anything]

27. You do realize 99.4% chance says it won't happen. Odds are better all of us win lottery

Nate is a stat freak

but please, 99.4% says Obama wins .06 says a tie.

you do realize 99.4% says IT WILL NOT HAPPEN

The odds are greater Chevy Chase will come back to SNL permanently and John Belushi is still alive than a tie happening.

The odds are greater Ross Perot will run for President when he is 150.

The odds are greater Taylor Swift will develop the cure for all cancer.

Gotta fork?
Stick it in the republicantealibertarians, because that party is over.
The fat lady has been singing for months and has 1000000 arias to go.

and the odds of Mitt winning the presidency is zilch, zero, nada

[Zalatix]

28. Mr. Obama?

That's PRESIDENT to you, asshole blogger.

The NYT ought to fire that idiot.

[Zoeisright]

31. Uh huh. Pull the other one.

In other words, Bull. Shit.

[Aerows]

32. He didn't bother to follow his own rules

Obama has an 86% chance to win Nevada according to his own maps, and he didn't include it in the "85% of the states President Obama is polled to win."

More horse race type crap.