If the Obama-Romney election were held today
by Brian Mann on April 21st, 2012
A Sunday survey of all the very latest polling data from all 50 states.
If today were election day and voters voted exactly in line with the latest polls, President Barack Obama would win a second term by a handy margin of 309 electoral college votes to 229 for Mitt Romney.
(270 electoral college votes are needed to win.)
As things stand, Romney wins Arizona, New Hamphsire, Missouri, North Carolina and Virginia. Obama wins Colorado, Florida, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.
Romney obviously needs a couple of big flips, likely Florida, Pennsylvania or Ohio. He also needs to shore up his support in New Hampshire, North Carolina and Virginia, where his leads are razor-thin.
Seven months to go…
Tags: analysis, election12, politics
Brian says: “Romney obviously needs a couple of big flips, likely Florida, Pennsylvania or Ohio. He also needs to shore up his support in New Hampshire, North Carolina and Virginia, where his leads are razor-thin.”
I think it depends on ones point of view. My POV would find great satisfaction in an outcome wherein Romney came out of the election with no electoral college votes (not a likely happenstance); furthermore, I would be exceedingly pleased to see the US electorate hand the Speaker of the House position back to the Democrats and shove the Republicans in the Senate back to about 30 seats or less.
The unbelievably cozy Republican/conservative One Percent relationship just may bring the US electorate out of the stupor they have been wandering about in for the past 35 years, or thereabouts, and deliver my druthers.
Brian – where do you get your polling data?
Peter –
I use two “aggregators” that pull together a lot of the data, making it easy to sort through. One is realclearpolitics.com and the other is 270towin.com.
They gather polls from everybody, from Rasmussen (conservative) to PPP (Democratic) in one place.
Pollster.com, meanwhile, and fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com have interesting discussions of the thinking behind the polls.
–Brian, NCPR
One key will be next month’s unemployment numbers. If they go up these polls will change quickly against obama, if they continue down they solidify his lead.
watching the numbers
infinite variations
truth comes only once
Using an NPR slogan, “All Things Considered” we are now living in the best of times.
A shocking idea? Maybe but consider fewer people are dying in wars and most people are living longer and healthier lives.
When it comes to the economy, the two main problems will prove difficult to solve and are to a great extent the fault of progress.
Automation and computerization has made it possible to produce more goods and services by fewer people at a lower cost. With the population growing, this creates a situation where you have more people looking for work while the need for workers continues to fall. This problem is compounded by people living longer and healthier lives.
The other problem I see is a bit weird in the sense that it costs more to be poor. How so? Well, people have been convinced (thanks to marketing) to believe they need things that they didn’t need in the past and could get by without today. Cell phones and even smart phones are but one example. You can add big houses, vacation homes, toys for adults, vacations, etc. and you get the idea. Then when many of these things are purchased on credit and a person loses their job, the you know what hits the fan and problems begin.
Don’t expect government, Democrat or Republican, to solve these problems. We are on our own.
Happy Earth Day.
Pete says: “Don’t expect government, Democrat or Republican, to solve these problems. We are on our own.”
What ever happened to the concept that “we the people” are the “government”?
Having participated in many a government/corporate contract negotiation I was consistently amazed at how few humans in government/corporate endeavors have even a modicum of comprehension of the meaning of the term “negotiation”. Many humans not involved with such negotiations appear to fall into similar patterns of thought, i.e.: “my way or no way”.
Take the highly controversial current POTUS. Republicans/conservatives have refused to negotiate virtually in “no faith” much less “good faith” with President Obama; ostensibly because he has single-handedly been responsible for all of the ills currently undermining the strength of the US. This is done whilst, simultaneously declaring the fact that Barrack Obama is the first “oh no” BLACK POTUS has not a single thing to do with their dislike of the man. My least favorite US Senator, Mitch McConnell, initiated the current Republican/conservative mantra of “one term president” as the most important of Republican policies in Oct 2010; but, this had nothing to do with Obama’s skin color because as we US citizens all know prejudice was excised from the land in 1865; well if not then, surely in the mid 60’s under POTUS Kennedy and Johnson’s Great Society programs. SURE
Negotiation; my definition based upon my experiences: dialogue between two or more people or parties to craft outcomes to satisfy various interests of dispute between the two people/parties ALWAYS requiring compromise on the part of BOTH people/parties. Negotiation as practiced in the main is specifically intended to give one party ADVANTAGE over the other, ofttimes resulting in war, divorce, law suits, ….
Therefore if “we the people” have the courage to reclaim OUR government from the 1% who currently own the government we may together be able to make headway with the problems facing humans only if we ALL can subscribe to negotiations of compromise in ALL areas of human endeavor; otherwise we continue on with the SNAFU in which we find ourselves embroiled world wide.
“Negotiation as practiced in the main is specifically intended to give one party ADVANTAGE over the other”
A very strange turn of events, because throughout history negotiation was used to find mutually agreeable consensus that benefitted both parties.
I often wonder how it was that I ended up in Backwards World and how to find my way out of it and into the World Where Things Make Sense.
Wow! Be still my racing heart. 10 attaboys to 1 awshucks for my initial comment to this post gives me a sense that the republican/conservatives are greatly misreading their backing for the 1%. I recognize that the majority of the listeners to NCPR are likely of a more liberal bent; but, ten to one here in the North Country with 160+ years of Republican representation in the US house until Owens.
Ken,
You are absolutely correct about Americans not realizing they are the government and if they don’t like it, it is their fault.
They talk and act as though the government were imposed upon them by some foreign entity.
To a great extent, this is the fault of the news media which loves dirty laundry.
Wouldn’t it be fun to know how many in the media avail themselves of prostitutes while covering a story?
There is no shortage of presidential election horse race coverage. The media should focus much more on real issues and less on polls. Maybe then national politics would be more about making things better and less about which side is winning.
I’d like to see all polls abolished for a 1 year period before all presidential elections. Maybe, just maybe it would force(encourage) the public to actually listen to what the politicians are saying and compare it to what they are actually doing and make up their own minds and vote accordingly. I’d like to think this would make a difference but I also think most people have given up beleiving their votes make any difference anymore. When barely half the eligible voters exercise that right it indicates to me they have lost all faith in the system. It now appears to be a government of the rich, by the rich and controlled by big money.
I agree with the negative impact on democracy in the US of polling.
Why would a New Yorker vote in a presidential election beyond just civic duty? Does any poll show New York making any difference in this presidential election?
We should just do the polls, and then in November let Ohio, Florida Pennsylvania and a couple of other states vote and decide who are president will be.
Hopefully whoever it is they will be able to write a decent sentence with correct grammar and spelling, unlike this poster.
Ken Hall says: “Republicans/conservatives have refused to negotiate virtually in “no faith” much less “good faith” with President Obama”.
Don’t forget Ken, this lack of negotiation hasn’t been the tactic of the GOP only…his predecessor didn’t enjoy much cooperation from the Democrats on matters beyond global imperialism and the short-lived post 9/11 “unity”.
For example, you might recall, Dubya attempted to open the conversation on Social Security reform and was immediately shut down by the Democrats and mainstream media (although Republicans did control Congress at the time). In the meantime, Social Security remains in a broken state, with no get well plan identified. Turbo Timmy Geither even stated yesterday that, “In 2033, incoming revenue and trust fund resources will be insufficient to maintain payment of full benefits…at that point there will only be enough money to cover about three-fourths of full benefits.”
Would privatization of retirement accounts solved this (whether it be partials/hybrids, only under 30 can go private, privatization starts for those entering workforce today, etc)?
Tough to say, as it would have certainly come with some negative effects, but the conversation wasn’t even welcomed. Scare tactics began immediately. Conversations/negotiations on the matter wouldn’t even begin. And there remains a large sucking sound in the Social Security coffers. GOP to blame on some matters today, but certainly Dems share blame on that one.
And let’s not forget the wonderful ways our lovely Dems and Repubs have come together in compromise!
– Record Debt and Out of Control Government Spending! (pick your poison…defense spending or social programs)
– Lower Taxes in the face of the demand for more spending! (either on the rich or on the middle class…either way, they demand more and take less money in for it…same problem)
– Global Empire! (one party ran us into two wars over the past decade, they other campaigned to end them but has done very little to move towards that)
– Stripping away civil liberties and basic rights! (from continued use of Guantanamo Bay to targeted killings of American citizens without trial to gay marriage)
You did touch on a very nice point about the government being of the people, and for the people…however, that is exactly our problem these days…the people are too apathetic, tucked away, deaf to harsh realities of the problems we are facing…it’s a lot easier for them to point to Washington and blame those idiots. Let’s not forgot what H.L. Menken said…”Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.”
Once upon a time, we did know what we wanted…we can get there again, but people need to wake up. A guy with a (D) after his name is just as dangerous as a guy with a (R) after his name.
Howdy Cptn M, Where to start? At the end me thinks. Since you know of H.L. I reckon you are likely in my age group, 70ish, therefore, the once upon a time you reference that would be subsequent to WWII but before the 70’s. Back when the US was the Earth’s largest oil producer and seller, the national debt was miniscule, the wealthy were taxed at nose bleed rates of 90% and more, the wage ratio between employer and employee was maybe 10 to 1 and a house cost about a years salary. Is that the once upon a time you are referencing? If so then you undoubtedly recognize that one of the major reasons that was a good time to live was that many a worker had participated in the near war between Corporations and Unions from the 20’s to the 50’s to realize those good times for the many not just the few.
Our foray into Viet Nam and the initial slide into energy shortages in the early 70’s as the US oil production peaked and the Arab oil cartels clamped down on their spigots, in response to our support of Israel, seemed to ignite a mentality of greed throughout the land of the free. By the time Reagan took office as the POTUS Unions had multiple harpoon wounds gushing members and Reagan declared it was time to get serious and brought out the heavy artillery. Lower tax rates for the rich, snatch the Cadillac from the welfare Queens, raise Defense spending and do in the Unions leading to all of the things you deplore.
So you do not know if allowing GWB to have his way and privatize SS would have been good or bad eh? Let me posit this; would the Bush administration have rushed into shore up the privatized SS funds going down the crapper as they did the banksters in 2008? Personally, I think not.
My point about both parties in a negotiation taking part in a give and take was obviously not followed by the Republican crowd during the GWB administration. The Democrats could surely have stopped or modified all of the not good bills, which you delineated, that were agreed to by both parties using the tactics of the current US Senate. Likelihood is the Democrats did what they did because they had the impression that is what we the people wanted them to do. Other than the rebuff to gambling with the SS funds which other bills did the GWB administration fail to gain Democratic acquiescence on? Lower tax rates for the rich? No; Declaring war on Afghanistan and Iraq? No; Increasing DoD spending on the Cuff? No; Bailing out the obscenely rich subsequent to the economic collapse they caused? No; ; ; ; ;.
Social Security going broke? Not quite yet. Negotiations; lets see, how about the rich pay on their total income and get nothing back unless they become poor. Where is the give and take there? The rich can obviously afford it and the fact that they are rich means that they are enjoying all of the benefits and protections provided by living in the US of A. If, perish the thought, they should fall on hard times and are reduced to a canned cat food diet they can petition SS to receive benefits just as you or I can. Cutoff? How about anyone with assets which enable them to withdraw funds at a rate equivalent to or more than the maximum SS benefit. Isn’t negotiating fun?