General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWalter Russell Mead: Where Things Stand: If the Presidential Election Were Held Today
http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2012/03/18/where-things-stand-if-the-presidential-election-were-held-today/Click the candidate's name above the map at the link to see how well President Obama would do against either Romney or Santorum, and compare to how well he did against McCain.
Via Meadia has been looking for a way to take note of the 2012 election without getting too deeply into the weeds, and for now at least we are going to use this quick and dirty British technique to show readers what current national opinion polls mean for the electoral college vote. In essence, the technique is to take a reasonably reliable poll result (we go with RCPs poll of polls) and see how, once the undecideds are assigned, President Obama is doing compared to his performance in 2008. We assume that the national swing up or down in his support is distributed equally across all fifty states; our graphic has its limits, but over time it should give readers a good sense of where the race is going.
For now, we have tested President Obama against his two most likely GOP opponents: Governor Mitt Romney and Senator Rick Santorum. Using this method, it appears that if the election had been held today, President Obama would have handily won. His percentage of the popular vote looks to be lower than it was in 2008, but this doesnt seem to be impacting him as much in the electoral college as much as the raw polls might suggest.
The President is running slightly better against Santorum than he did against Senator McCain; indeed our poll projection shows the President carrying every state against Santorum that he did against McCain and picking up Missouri as well. (Note that electoral vote totals reflect the changes mandated by the 2010 census.)
Governor Romney fares somewhat better: he holds Missouri and retakes North Carolina and Indiana.
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bluestateguy
(44,173 posts)None of this John Kerry bullshit of writing off Missouri in August.
I know that state will be uphill, but it should not be handed over to Romney on a silver platter.
sadbear
(4,340 posts)due to the census reapportionment.
BlueIris
(29,135 posts)gateley
(62,683 posts)nanabugg
(2,198 posts)little or no power over rising or falling gas prices. His best card to is to jawbone and the prices might dip.
mvymvy
(309 posts)The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).
Every vote, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in presidential elections. No more distorting and divisive red and blue state maps. There would no longer be a handful of 'battleground' states where voters and policies are more important than those of the voters in more than 3/4ths of the states that now are just 'spectators' and ignored.
When the bill is enacted by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538), all the electoral votes from the enacting states would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and DC.
The bill uses the power given to each state by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution to change how they award their electoral votes for President. Historically, virtually all of the major changes in the method of electing the President, including ending the requirement that only men who owned substantial property could vote and 48 current state-by-state winner-take-all laws, have come about by state legislative action.
In Gallup polls since 1944, only about 20% of the public has supported the current system of awarding all of a state's electoral votes to the presidential candidate who receives the most votes in each separate state (with about 70% opposed and about 10% undecided). Support for a national popular vote is strong among Republicans, Democrats, and Independent voters, as well as every demographic group in virtually every state surveyed in recent polls in closely divided Battleground states: CO 68%, FL 78%, IA 75%, MI 73%, MO 70%, NH 69%, NV 72%, NM 76%, NC 74%, OH 70%, PA 78%, VA 74%, and WI 71%; in Small states (3 to 5 electoral votes): AK 70%, DC 76%, DE 75%, ID 77%, ME 77%, MT 72%, NE 74%, NH 69%, NV 72%, NM 76%, OK 81%, RI 74%, SD 71%, UT 70%, VT 75%, WV 81%, and WY 69%; in Southern and Border states: AR 80%,, KY- 80%, MS 77%, MO 70%, NC 74%, OK 81%, SC 71%, TN 83%, VA 74%, and WV 81%; and in other states polled: CA 70%, CT 74%, MA 73%, MN 75%, NY 79%, OR 76%, and WA 77%. Americans believe that the candidate who receives the most votes should win.
The bill has passed 31 state legislative chambers in 21 small, medium-small, medium, and large states. The bill has been enacted by 9 jurisdictions possessing 132 electoral votes - 49% of the 270 necessary to bring the law into effect.
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