Switching Sides
We all know what has to happen in November: a certain number of voters who pulled the lever for Obama in 2008 have to switch sides. That's the only way the math is going to work for the Romney '12 effort.
How's it looking? From Gallup:
Eighty-six percent of voters who say they voted for Barack Obama in 2008 are backing Obama again this year, a smaller proportion than the 92% of 2008 John McCain voters who are supporting 2012 Republican candidate Mitt Romney. Nine percent of 2008 Obama voters have switched to supporting Romney this year, while 5% of McCain voters have switched to Obama.
My guess is, that percentage of Obama voters is actually lower than it really is. After four years of the media/Democrat drumbeat that to be against Obama is to be racist, I suspect a lot of respondents who plan to switch sides just aren't interested in telling that to a strange pollster.
There's some more (cautiously) good news, from Dick Morris:
Romney is currently leading in every state McCain carried plus: Indiana, New Hampshire, Wisconsin, Nevada, North Carolina, and Colorado. If he carries these states, he’ll have 228 electoral votes of the 270 he needs to win.
To win the election, Romney would then have to carry Florida where he trails by two points, and either Virginia (behind by two) or Ohio where he’s down by only one.
If he carries all three of these states and also wins all the others where Obama is now at 50% or less – Iowa, New Mexico, Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey — he will get 351 electoral votes, a landslide about equal to Obama’s 363 vote tally in 2008.
The strong probability is that Romney does, in fact, carry Florida, Ohio, and Virginia and a share of the other states where Obama is below 50% of the vote.
So don’t believe the garbage being put out by the media. The attempt to portray Romney as not catching on and as dropping in the polls is ludicrous. It is, at best, the product of incompetent polling and, at worst, the result of deliberate media bias. But Romney is winning and expanding his lead each week. That’s the real story.
I tend to agree. And as you know, I'm a cockeyed pessimist.
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Comments:
Oct '10
Re: Switching Sides
I wish Dick Morris would go away. Reminds me of Uriah Heep.
My memory (perhaps flawed, but I won't bother vetting it on this subject) is that he has made wildly inaccurate predictions right up to the eve of recent elections.
Nov '11
Re: Switching Sides
I refuse to start seriously trying to make predictions until at least after the convention. Too much stress and too much fluidity in the situation.
But I'm happy to know you're optimistic.
Apr '12
Re: Switching Sides
I hope you are correct! I am also an optimist.
Jun '11
Re: Switching Sides
Obama 2008 voters don't even have to switch. They can do their duty to God and country by not showing up.
Jul '11
Re: Switching Sides
We're going to see lower turnout, and that doesn't help Barry one bit. In terms of how that breaks down in the voting demographics, I'm sure there's polling out there on it, but expect:
1. A lower aggregate turnout for "youthful" voters, who are more likely to vote for the guy who promises them everything for free, but not at the levels in 2008. I'll be really surprised if that same vote turns up at the same level in November.
2. A higher motivated turnout from conservatives who stayed away in droves in 2008. You will see a higher turnout this time around. Bet the rent on it. I think the surprise that met Democrats waking up after election day in 2010 for the mid-terms is going to be back on their faces in early November.
3. No free tacos. There. I said it.
When Barry loses (and he's going to lose), at least we'll have this graceful parting shot: He loses because now, everybody, is a racist. It'll be Springtime in America again, for all us racists. Get used to this idea. It's coming.
Oct '10
Re: Switching Sides
I find it preposterous that only 9% of 2008 Obambi voters will switch while as many as 5% of 2008 McCain voters will switch. How could anyone who didn't vote for Obambi the first time decide now that that was a mistake? While there have got to be plenty of starry-eyed maroons who, for one mindless reason or another, voted for Obambi in '08 and wouldn't do it again with a 10-foot pole.
Dec '10
Re: Switching Sides
/facepalm /facepalm slide /sigh...
Why'd it have to be Dick Morris?
The last brilliant and accurate thought Dick Morris had about politics was that Bill Clinton's triangulation would work. He's the worst . political . prognosticator . ever! Whenever I want to know how an election will turn out, I listen to Dick Morris and bet on the opposite. Let's hope he breaks pattern here.
May '10
Re: Switching Sides
One of the things that's going to have to happen is the conservative commentariat is going to have to start pulling at the oars instead of poking holes in the boat.
Example, instead of agreeing and fussing about Romney releasing his tax returns, they should in unison start demanding a grand bargain: Romney to release an additional two years of tax returns if Obama will release his Columbia and Occidental transcripts. They should say that every time some journolist asks them about Romney's returns, then follow up with the question "why aren't you as interested in Obama's transcripts as Romney's tax returns?" Romney meanwhile holds this as a trump card in case the moderator or Obama bring up the tax return question in the debates.
Taking all the complaints about flip-flops, wimpiness, RINOs, &tc. as read: We've got to get focused on getting Romney elected, unless we want a 2nd Obama term.
Jun '12
Re: Switching Sides
Reading polls at this stage is like trying to predict a ball game in the fifth inning.
Doesn't stop me, but please remember, there's still a lot of baseball... er... politics yet to be played. And anything can happen.
Jun '10
Re: Switching Sides
Hugh Hewitt, the radio host, was back in his home state of Ohio for a non-political charity event, and says he talked to about sixty people from a variety of backgrounds, mostly middle-class, and found about three people that were planning to vote for Obama. Three out of sixty. Maybe it's just an anomaly, but it's a nice anomaly.
Jun '10
Re: Switching Sides
Rob, I know you get pummeled around here for being a RINO squish, but as one of the Captains of the Pessimist Industry, I'm going to have to call you out as a pessimist squish.
As said above, although Morris's predictions always do have some basis in an earthbound reality, he usually adds too heavy a dose of unicorn skittles.
I think the best "tipping point" is Va. Rampantly higher Federal bureaucracy hiring is growing Northern Va by leaps and bounds, Richmond has a very large, dependable black population, and the college towns aren't getting any smaller (tho their turnout will be slightly lower than '08).
Better than even odds, as goes Va, so goes the election. But my ha'penny is on not much being truly instructive until after Labor Day.
By the way, I still maintain that the tipping point is which side will get more of their base voters out who have already declared they're staying home, as opposed to Obama-to-Romney switchers.
Edited on August 7, 2012 at 4:40amJul '11
Re: Switching Sides
Romney will win. A demi-god told me two days ago.
Apr '11
Re: Switching Sides
Chris Campion:
2. A higher motivated turnout from conservatives who stayed away in droves in 2008. You will see a higher turnout this time around. Bet the rent on it. I think the surprise that met Democrats waking up after election day in 2010 for the mid-terms is going to be back on their faces in early November.
It's a myth that conservatives didn't turn out in 2008. They turned out for McCain/Palin at Bush/Cheney levels. We got creamed anyway because we lost moderates.
This is a very harmful myth because it played a big role in the conservative base's brief conviction that Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum were plausible presidential candidates (can you imagine what their fundraising and poll numbers would look like today?).
May '10
Re: Switching Sides
So here is the math:
O '08 x .86 + McC '08 5% = 62,729,672
McC '08 x .92 + O '08 9% = 61,391,150
That's Obama +1,338,523
But that's assuming the exact same turnout on both sides. A dispirited base is Obama's worst nightmare.
But raw vote totals are like hits in baseball and the Electoral College votes are the runs scored. Ask George W. Bush - you can get out-hit and still win.
Jun '10
Re: Switching Sides
But, EJ, math's harrrrrrrrrd, and I went to public school...
Dec '10
Re: Switching Sides
Must have been a fascinating poll question: "Do you plan to admit that your vote for Barack Obama was a major bonehead move by not voting for his re-election?"
People are reluctant to admit their mistakes. (The Republican Jewish Committee has a brilliant new ad campaign called "My Buyer's Remorse" to show American Jews that it's okay to admit to oneself that voting for Obama has proven in retrospect to be a mistake.)
Apr '11
Re: Switching Sides
It was a charity event. Obama voters don't do charity -- they believe in forced "charity" through government handouts.
Mar '11
Re: Switching Sides
I don't trust Morris. And either these polls are all a huge conspiracy against Republicans and a tidal wave is coming, or voters really don't like Romney that much, and Obama is the "better the devil you know" in the swing states. I bet it's the latter.
Mar '11
Re: Switching Sides
For what its worth (while I think him a more credible source then Morris, Rove may have his own reasons for wanting to 'read' some of the swing states as tilting Obama) here's his current electoral map:
Jul '11
Re: Switching Sides
Nevada will go Romney as long as Reid does not rig the machines in Clark County(Vegas). I don't trust that poll.