The In Box prediction: Obama will win
So all year I’ve been talking about what looks to me like a systemic Barack Obama advantage in the electoral college. In the interest of good old fashioned hanging it all out there, I’m going to offer my analysis of what will happen on election day, one week from now.
Let me say first that I wouldn’t do this if I thought my views were even remotely important enough to matter. I wouldn’t dream of predicting the outcome of local races, for example. But I take comfort in this discussion about national politics in my own big-picture irrelevance.
Let me say also that this analysis does not reflect my own opinion about who should win. NCPR does not endorse candidates, nor does the In Box, nor do I. This is my read of the facts on the ground, not my personal wish list.
Those footnotes out of the way, here’s my prediction: On election day, the ground game advantage that Barack Obama’s campaign has been bragging about will turn out to be real.
I’ve looked closely at the reporting and the facts surrounding their argument and I find it to be credible and significant. Obama’s campaign built a revolutionary level of voter data in 2008 and those contacts have been enhanced and developed over the four years since.
Republican efforts at voter suppression will have served, ironically, to mobilize black and Hispanic communities that might otherwise have remained fairly complacent in this dreary, uninspiring election year.
Romney’s team, meanwhile, has done a credible, aggressive job of playing catch-up, but his campaign was plagued until very recently by dissatisfaction among party faithful, by a more balkanized political machine (relying more on state party organizations), and by the pressure of the calendar.
During the primaries and for many weeks after, Team Romney simply lacked the resources, the discipline and the focus to match the kind of ground work that Obama’s campaign has done.
If I’m correct in this assessment, liberal and younger voters in urban areas, along with African American and Hispanic voters, will turn out in numbers that will be slightly ahead of the “likely voter” models that most pollsters are using. Team Obama will also capitalize on small but significantly superior early voting efforts in battleground states.
This effort will give Obama a razor-thin margin in the popular vote, and will give him a significant victory in the electoral college. To hit this mark, Obama will win the states that are now essentially tied, including Colorado, Florida and Virginia.
Obama’s margin will be extremely narrow in a surprising number of places — Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin — but he will eke out wins.
Romney’s campaign will have accomplished essentially what John Kerry managed in 2004: He will have pushed close to parity with a sitting president in many, many battleground states, without closing the deal — through argument or ground-game organization — in enough places to win.
One caveat: I’ll stick with my prediction, and take lumps or praise on election day accordingly, but I want to toss out one significant possibility. It remains plausible that the polls just have it wrong.
Currently, Obama leads or is tied with Romney in every battleground state except Florida and North Carolina. (In Florida, the difference is well within the margin of error.)
But it may be that across much of the nation, weary, frustrated and nervous white voters will simply turn away from Obama when they reach the privacy of the booth.
I’m not suggesting that this rejection of the incumbent would be based solely on his race, though I think for many Americans race remains a significant and poorly understood factor in political decisions.
What I mean is that soft Democrats, many independents and late undecideds who are uncomfortable telling pollsters that they won’t vote for Obama may, at the moment of truth, just be more at ease in this stressful time with Mitt Romney — a guy who looks the part of a traditional president.
If this happens, we could certainly see a complete reversal of what I’ve predicted here. We could see a lot of states in the Great Lakes Region, the Rust Belt, and the border South (Florida, Virginia) tipping to the Republican.
Again, that’s not a hedge, just another plausible scenario. Come election day, score my prognostication skills against this mark: Obama wins the popular vote 49%-48% and he captures the electoral college by a 332-206 margin.
Tags: analysis, election12, politics
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Concerning voter ID’s. If someone can’t prove they’re a citizen, they’re probably not a citizen.
Voting isn’t something that starts at 6:00am on election day. Most people have to plan ahead to register and get their voting rights secured.
It’s not rocket science, but it is a responsibility of citizenship.
If any citizen wishes to participate in the voting process, they had better be prepared for the responsibilities that implies.
It is immoral to think that men and women who have reached voting age have to be led by the hand like an infant to a voting booth, where they have to be coddled, like an infant, and not be required to have some sort of way to verify 1) their identity and 2) their ability to vote.
We are not a country of babies who need all-mighty hands of government to bus us to a voting place, read us the ballot, pat us on the head if we can’t prove we’re a citizen and say “thah thah little pooh pooh, it’s ok. No one’s goin a make you show your ID”.
We are a nation of adults. Certainly we can hold up a standard for the most important duty that a citizen will participate in.
JDM, have you ever been asked for your ID when you voted? I haven’t at various times in 4 different cities or towns in two different states. I don’t believe I know anyone who has been asked to provide an ID to vote.
Just think about the logistics of trying to vote multiple times at various polling stations. For that type of scheme to make a major difference in most elections would take a number of people working together, standing in line at one polling place, voting, moving to another polling place and standing in line again…
And it seems all too likely that such a scheme would unravel. Somebody would get caught, or somebody would spill the beans.
No, any major voter fraud would be done by a few individuals with inside access to the voting systems, or it would be done by finding means to exclude valid voters who would likely vote in a predictable fashion, like young voters or minority voters.
According to the ACLU, up to 11% of US citizens do not have a government-issued ID, and 7% of US citizens do not have documentary proof of citizenship. My understanding is the latter are often elderly people who were born at home (thus no birth certificate). See http://www.aclu.org/voter-suppression-america .
The reason that some of the voter ID laws are now being thrown out of court is because of the number of people who have voted all their life but now find that they have been disenfranchised.
And yes JDM, not everyone can drive, and not everyone can see or read a ballot. Some people need a helping hand to get to the polls. We should do everything we can to give them that help. It could be our parents or disabled children. It may well be us one day.
“If any citizen wishes to participate in the voting process, they had better be prepared for the responsibilities that implies.”
So here’s how one method of voter suppression works. If you are trying to reduce the number of Democratic voters you institute a new voter ID law. Most people don’t pay much attention to that sort of thing and they show up at the polling place surprised to find they need a drivers license. Not a big problem for most rural or suburban voters who happen to be more likely to vote Republican, but many urban people don’t drive cars and they happen to tend to be Democratic voters. So then they don’t get to vote, which may be a violation of the Equal Protection Clause.
If your view is “too bad, they can get an ID before the next election” that means you are accepting that those people would be disenfranchised for one Presidential election – maybe 10% of an average person’s opportunities to vote in their lifetime. I just described only one of many types of voter suppression.
The insidious nature of it is that minorities already have their political voice diluted though gerrymandering, then to have their chance to vote taken from them once or twice or more keeps them from having proper representation. And it makes them angry at the party that tried to keep them from voting, too. So in the end it hurts the Republican party as well.
Why is it that voter ID discussions tend to drift toward an implication concerning the inability of minorities to perform correctly?
I don’t discount the ability of anyone, regardless of race, age, income, or any other classification to be able to be a responsible citizen.
Where we live, we have to register by a certain date, before the election in order to vote. Fine. I expect every majority, minority, man, woman, person who is breathing to obey that law.
I don’t presume to identify some hypothetical classification of persons to be exempt because of their “classification”.
(I’m being very careful not to call anyone a name, or stereotype. How’d I do, Brian?)
If old white guys are the new minority, will i be getting more bennies then? healthcare? college loans? jobs placement (by the newly formed Equal Opp Employment for O.W.G’s?
* close parenthesis :)
Here’s a good piece on voter fraud: NY Times: The Danger of Voter Fraud Vigilantes.
And that’s just part of the story. There have also been mailings and robo-calls that tell selected voters that they should vote the day after election day.
The people behind these schemes do not believe in democracy.
Not voter ID discussions JDM, voter suppression discussions. And the reason is that minorities are the people whose votes are being suppressed. It’s pretty simple really.
khl: then let’s fix the problem.
It’s not a problem to require voter ID. The “hard” word has to be done weeks and months before the election to make sure people who want to vote according to the law 1) have knowledge of the law, 2) can obtain whatever documents the law requires, and 3) verify their identity (in our case with a matching signature) on election day.
It’s too easy to toss out words like “suppression” and “disenfranchised” and use those as excuses not to do the right thing.
Let’s raise the bar, not lower it, when it comes to voting.
If someone cannot figure out how to register to vote, according to their local law, they probably aren’t qualified to vote in the election, anyway.
Voting requires personal responsibility. It requires the voter to educate themselves on the people running for office, and the issues that they stand for.
I go back to the nation of adults. There’s a reason we don’t have voting beginning at age 4. Children aren’t expected to know all these things, and vote responsibly.
Adults are.
JDM, you didn’t read that link, did you? Try it… you might learn something.
I don’t think vote suppression has to do with these silly ID laws, although I think they should be looked at. True voter suppression and anti-democratic principles in the US have to do with locked down, gerrymandered districts in the US where no real choices are possible. Most congressional districts in the US are non-competitive districts in which the political party of the winner is essentially pre-determined.
This is writ large in the national presidential election when in reality only voters in about 5-7 states have their votes matter or count. Voters in NY, TX or CA are essentially disenfranchised already for this presidential election.
JDM: “If someone can’t prove they’re a citizen, they’re probably not a citizen.”
We really live in different universes. The internet is full of stories about now elderly people, especially in the South, and often black, we were born at home, never had their births registered, never got a driver’s license, but nevertheless are on record of consistently voting since, say, 1964 or so. Now someone says she has to prove her citizenship.
And time, after time, stories have shown virtually no prosecutions, or investigations, or accusations of voter fraud over recorded memory in the states where their is all this Republican hydrophobia about it. I do remember seeing a clip where the head of Republicans in the PA. legislature was saying, on camera, something like, ” these laws will guarantee that Gov. Romney will carry Pennsylvania.” Unfortunately, for him, and Romney, a court thru the laws out.
Normally, I would agree with you that people should be able to manage voting on their own, but these abuses are so egregious, disenfranchising so many people who demonstrably, live, and voted in, their communities for decades, it does not hold. Same old right-wing overreach.
JDM, show me evidence that there has been serious voter fraud by individuals seeking to vote multiple times.
Getting most people to vote even once is the big problem.
Another comment, totally different topic within the election universe that I wanted to make yesterday( but was unable to fight my way to the computer ).
All the comments about “Nate” this and “Nate” that, I find quite amusing. Here we are constantly citing Nate Silver, “538.com”, as the yardstick for the election. Same is true on other fact-based-if-somewhat liberal sites I look at. It’s like he’s some kind of first name superstar, the “Kobe” of electoral statistics. This kind of amusing in itself, but all the more so when you look at political TV. Don’t know about Fox (my gag-reflex kicks in after about 30 seconds most of the time) but MSNBC talkers NEVER cite Nate. It’s like “Nate”, “Silver” and “538” have been added to the late George Carlin’s “7 words you can never say on TV” list. Except on John Stewart of Bill Maher, who have both had him on recently. I honestly think that MSNBC execs have issued a directive forbidding mentioning him.
Why? Because, of course, if they used his conclusions about the polls, they would nothing to endlessly talk about.
Uh-oh. The Morning Joe meteorologist in chattering away in the next room just said that they are seeing a new “major weather event” that could impact Virgina and Ohio on or about Election Day. Uh-oh.
“And a Vulcan wouldn’t have thought of it; not logical.”
But you did a good job describing the logic behind it?
“I don’t believe I know anyone who has been asked to provide an ID to vote. ”
The president was asked last week:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/election-2012/wp/2012/10/25/obama-asked-for-id-while-voting/
Newt, so are you actually alleging all those elderly southern blacks have no Social Security card? No power bills, no rent receipts, no mortgage, no drivers license, military service records? How incredibly racist! Those po’black folk ain’t smart ’nuff to provide fo’ theyseffs!
FWIW I’ve had to provide ID to new poll workers over the past few years.
Paul, don’t make me get all Trekkie on your ass! The logic is about human nature, which makes sense to irrational humans but is not logical.
There will be fraud and irregularities on both side, hopefully not serious enough to influence the outcome. Other than that, this all sounds like a bunch of excuse preparation.
Serious question. How does one go about proving they are an American citizen? I can think of two ways. Show a valid birth certificate, which can sometimes be hard to do and the validity of such certificate can (and has been) been questioned. Or, show a passport, which many people do not have and may be unaffordable to some.
A couple years ago I got an enhanced NYS drivers license. Took 3 trips to the motor vehicle office to get it. Showing a passport was not enough evidence to obtain such a license.
Yeah, that birth certificate thing can sure be a problem sometimes.
Crabtree-
I don’t think that an 85-year-old woman , with no driver’s license, or (duh) car, who has signed the voting register for decades without being challenged, and can find witnesses to attest to her identity, should be compelled to go all over her country numerous times to obtain an i.d. to vote.
Before the PA law got thrown out, The PBS News hour (I think) showed a woman in Philadelphia ( PA, not Mississippi) trying to get her ID card. She had her car-owning daughter to help, and between the two of them it took 5 hours, several trips and phones calls,and all the stuff you mention, to get it done. Several of the people around them at the Driver’s License Bureau (whose staff was both clueless and mostly uncaring) gave up.
You think that’s fair?
“FWIW I’ve had to provide ID to new poll workers over the past few years.”
That is illegal in NYS.
Knuck, good point!
Newt and Walker: “The internet is full of stories about now elderly people, especially in the South, and often black, we were born at home, never had their births registered, never got a driver’s license”
Yes, voting takes work. It’s a responsibility. I’m sure an elder black lady in the South is more than able to contact the voting board in advance of an election and work things out.
This is just another example of lowering the bar to the ground, so that no one has any personal responsibility.
I think more highly of adults. I think that if we set a reasonable standard, people can figure it out.
Speaking of voting, why, oh why don’t we have early voting in NYS?
Maybe if we had early voting, we could close the polls at 7 pm instead of 9 pm and learn how the election turned out earlier.
It is not fair. We need to make it easier for people to obtain a valid ID. Since someone said that 93% of the population has one it seems like we should be able to help the other 7% without too much effort. No reason to think that it is some impossible task. Once we get everyone set up there is no reason for folks to argue about the issue. We should start acting like a country that can solve problems rather than one that makes excuses.
Rancid, for some of the states that have instigated the new ‘voter id’ laws, most of the forms of ID you mentioned don’t count. A WWII veteran who had voted all his life was turned away at the polls because the poll workers wouldn’t accept his VA card (it doesn’t come with an address). http://www.journaltimes.com/news/local/mount-pleasant-man-refuses-to-vote-after-finding-veteran-s/article_03e78de0-5cf8-11e1-a5e2-001871e3ce6c.html
Social security cards, as I presume you know, are NOT photo ID, which is what most of the new laws require. Nor is your mortgage or utility bills. Nor, of course is a birth certificate, but you can use it to get an approved photo ID if you have it, have the money, and the transport to get to the approved government office that issues it. As I said upstream, an estimated 11% of US citizens do not have a government-issued ID, and 7% of US citizens do not have documentary proof of citizenship.
it is really really weird hearing someone like jdm, who is normally against government intervention into people’s lives at every turn, arguing so forcefully for it here.
newt:
I think that if someone can’t take the time to properly identify themselves as able to vote, they probably shouldn’t be voting, anyway.
We don’t want to cart people off to the voting booth who don’t know who they’re voting for.
We don’t want people to arrive on election day, hear that one candidate is promising them $500 in “freebies” from heaven and the other candidate is going to throw grandma over the cliff, and expect this country to do well in the world.
We want responsible, educated voters selecting the best candidate based on issues.
sorry hermit, your post came on top of mine.
How am I arguing for government intervention?
I am trying to scream out PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY!
boom! right there you see exactly why the right term for all this is voter suppression. it’s all about keeping the wrong — as defined by jdm, or republicans generally — people from voting.
simple. you want to the government to make voting more burdensome.
There are all sorts of statistics on the effects of these voter suppression laws. They will reduce voting by about 1% and more Democrats than Republicans. In a close election (like this one) than could be important. Its fraudulent to claim that the laws are to prevent “voter fraud”.
JDM, I agree with your wish that all voters are responsible, educated about the issues and candidates, and use that info to make thoughtful voting decisions. But there is simply no way to do that, and the clumsy voter id laws do nothing to create thoughtful, responsible voters. It just means you can vote if you get a drivers license (or similar ID). I think we would also agree that a drivers license hardly guarantees that a person is responsible.
When I was born, there were still places in the US that had literacy tests for voting – the alleged reason was to assure that voters were informed voters. College graduates were turned down as illiterate in some polling stations – if they were undesirable voters from the viewpoint of the pollworkers (i.e. the wrong skin tone). It is worth reflecting that many elderly voters went through those times.
In any case, the Constitution does not stipulate that only informed citizens vote. It stipulates that all adult citizens have the right to vote.
TomL: “It stipulates that all adult citizens have the right to vote.”
Good point. I’m just trying to help define “adult” and “citizen”. :)
Well most people can’t definitively prove they are a citizen of the US or not in that we don’t have one document that would prove that. A Drivers license certainly does not prove you are a citizen of the US.
The closest thing we have would be a passport.
There is no registered database of US citizens.
Mervel: “Well most people can’t definitively prove they are a citizen of the US or not in that we don’t have one document that would prove that.”
Perhaps that is trying to think things through from the federal level.
If one considers the local level, it is much easier to see how this can be resolved.
The only role the federal government needs to play is to require the states to have in place a way to verify citizenship.
The state then comes up with a procedure for the local municipalities to comply with the federal mandate.
At the local level, people are very willing to help out with the “elderly black lady from the South” get her documents in order.
We have to think federally, but act locally.
In any case, the Constitution does not stipulate that only informed citizens vote. It stipulates that all adult citizens have the right to vote.
So now we don’t recognize that times have changed? Typically, that is the liberal argument when a conservative will refer to the constitution.
Normally, citizens have to jump through hoops with 3 proofs of residency to access government assistance. But voting for a president, we don’t need such things?
The “elderly people, especially in the South, and often black, .. were born at home, never had their births registered, never got a driver’s license, but nevertheless are on record of consistently voting since, say, 1964 or so. Now someone says she has to prove her citizenship” kind of people may be getting government assistance – and had to do alot of proving – along with an ID.
This conversation is ludicrous because it lacks common sense!
* I am not confusing a photo ID with proofs of residency. I am making the correlation with demanding one and not the other.
TomL, if a state passes a voter ID law then certainly a mechanism for identification can be established. The documents I mentioned are some of the common forms if ID for various social services, licensing, permits that are common use. I have to show a picture ID to buy certain household chemicals at Walmart, medicine at a drug store, ammo at a gun store, alcohol at the convenience store, and tobacco products too. I cannot get my veterans discount at Lowes, for instance, with out a valid ID card from the VA. I had to provide a photo drivers license to register at a motel some weeks back. Is it really too much to ask a citizen to ID himself to vote? I don’t think so.
The principal issue here is that Democrats are in favor not of enabling legal citizens voting, but of enabling non-citizens or those otherwise barred from participating to vote. That is the issue. The Republicans for the most part, and any honest person, see’s this as a problem. Personally I want every eligible citizen to vote. Right, left, white, black, yellow, red, purple, green or blue, male, female, gay, straight or in between, I don’t care who or what you are you get one vote, no more, no less. I don’t want dead people, illegal aliens or other disallowed persons voting and I don’t want people voting multiple times or under false names. That seems pretty simple to me, one citizen, one vote. It has absolutely nothing to do with disenfranchising blacks and minorities, that’s a classic strawman, and everything to do with keeping the system uncorrupted.
Rather than silly predictions, I find exploring different potential scenarios to be a little more interesting. Specifically if someone wins a popular vote plurality (probably won’t be a majority) and yet becomes president. This can happen one of two ways.
The more obvious way is a repeat of 2000 where one guy wins the popular vote and another guy wins the electoral vote. Interesting variation: someone loses the popular vote but wins the electoral college by a vote or two and a couple of electors “break faith” (I think that’s the technical term) and vote for the popular vote winner to change the result.
The other is if there is a tie in the Electoral College and the House elects the popular vote runner up. Interesting variation: if the Senate is controlled by the other party and elects the vice-president of the other party. (Given the logistics, this scenario would most likely result in a Romney-Biden administration).
Now this would be how exactly how the sacrosanct Constitution intends for things to work. But it would no doubt cause a major uproar. This might be the only way we can finally get rid of the Electoral College anachronism.
JDM: Obama’s definitively proven he’s a citizen many times but that still doesn’t satisfy some people.
Rancid,
Your recent post using your interpretation of poor black dialect, or your satire of it, along with citing a bunch of forms of ID that wouldn’t work under the laws you’re supporting, at once supports the implication of the nickname you’ve chosen for yourself and the stereotype that conservatives support positions they do not understand.
“The principal issue here is that Democrats are in favor not of enabling legal citizens voting, but of enabling non-citizens or those otherwise barred from participating to vote. That is the issue. ”
As has been pointed out a zillion times, there is no evidence that a single non-citizen has voted, ever (at least in modern times). If the Democrats are in favor of this, they are doing a terrible job.
This topic brings up an interesting point. With the way we can travel around now it seems like the old days of the “well if he lives here he was probably born here” are long gone. It is hard to tell who may or may not be a citizen. This is a big issue in some European countries where you don’t want to pay for programs for folks that are not citizens. Even when I lived in France in the 90s, with lots of immigrants from North Africa, people who didn’t “llok right” were getting harassed and asked to show their “papers”. I hope we don’t have to go there but if we want to provide health care for all Americans we better figure out a good way to know who is who. We cannot afford to pay for any percentage of the population that isn’t entitled to some of these programs.
Quick update: Events of the last 48 hours only re-enforce my confidence in my prediction.
1. At a moment when most political advertising is reduced to clutter, Obama is receiving priceless optics time due to Sandy. I know, I know, this shouldn’t be about politics, but it is. Chris Christie is one of Mitt Romney’s chief campaign surrogates and he’s calling Obama “outstanding.”
2. The Romney campaign is saying the kind of stuff that makes politics-watchers nervous. When asked why they’re confident about winning Ohio, they shift the conversation to Pennsylvania and Minnesota.
3. The days are trickling away, and Obama is leading or tied in all the battleground states except Florida and North Carolina. When asked why they haven’t “locked down” Florida and Virginia, Romney’s team lacked a good answer.
So..I offer myself up to be tarred and feathered if I’m wrong…twice!
–Brian, NCPR
a moderately safe bet