Talk Elections

An Obama victory seems very likely, although the size of the victory is a big question. It looks like his low end is just winning Kerry + IA, NM, CO and/or VA, which would be under 300 EV and considered 'close.' fivethirtyeight.com defines a landslide as 375 Electoral Votes and gives Obama a 48.15% chance (McCain has a 0.02% chance). To get that Obama would need to win every single contested state (Kerry + IA, NM, VA, CO, FL, OH, NV, MO, IN, NC). Both Pollster.com and RealClear have Obama leading in all those states, but what if he comes up short?

So at what point over 300 will they start using the L word. Does he have to win all the swing states for a landslide? What if he wins all but one or two?

Somewhere between 339 and 365. If he doesn't take any of MO, IN, NC, then no. If he takes at least two, that's when they start calling it a landslide. I think he'd need at least a 7% margin in the PV before you could call it a landslide.

I don't think an Obama victory seems all that likely, Likey Voter.  And certainly a landslide is extremely unlikely. 

300.  An Obama win is a "dramatic, amazing landslide of historic proportions" to the sycophantic media.

good question, I guess it's variable.

It's sort of a consensus definition that doesn't exist until after the states have voted.  Obviously the country has changed so that Reagan-esque and Johnson-esque victories are impossible even at the same overall margins.

I think it's a landslide probably if Obama wins all of the states he's targeting (minus MT) and especially if he wins some of the ones he isn't (GA).

I think you could argue that 1988 was an electoral landslide, but Carter, IIRC, had 303 EV's and it was close.

Edit:  297 to 240.  I think if McCain breaks 200, it isn't a landslide.

The Bush squeaker in 2004 was a "clear mandate"--so I imagine the landslide talk starts at around 300.

I voted 375-399, before noticing the question was about the media take on the story.

well I think the betting houses have him at 88% chance of winning and 538.com has his chance at 95%, and I think the general CW is that Obama will win, but that is not the point. My real question is, what is the definition of a landslide in the modern political era, for any candidate.

I actually heard Reagan's 1980 victory as being described as an electoral vote landslide, but not a real one.

how could Regain 1980 be described as anything but a landslide for both PV and EV. He won the PV by 9%. Perhaps the fact that he didn't break 51% for some means it wasn't a landslide, so maybe some will look to how far Obama goes above 50%. Carter barely broke 50% and due to Perot Clinton didn't break 50 either time. Last Dem significantly over 50 was Johnson.

So this makes the whole definition of landslide even murkier. Is it defined by total EVs, total PV%, or PV % gap?

How's this for a definition:

A landslide is one where states totaling at least 270 EV all have a margin of at least X% (where X is open to debate). 

To put it differently, if the losing candidate gained X% in every single state, it still wouldn't be enough to swing the election. 

Um, I would personally say a landslide is 400+. 270 to 330 or so is a small victory, and 330 to 400 is a solid victory. I predict that Obama will win a solid victory. He may win by as much or more than Bush in 1988, but the electoral map just doesn't work as well for him as it did for Bush.

Above 57% or so in the popular vote seems right. If it's that high, then the electoral votes will follow.

I am old fashioned. Getting  60% or more of the popular vote is a landslide. Anything less, and using the term is hyperbole, and the person using the term is a HP.

So 1984 wasn't a landslide?

Back when I was a freshman in university, taking the standard two-semester "History of the United States:  1619 to Present" course that everyone must take [note the Eurocentrism inherent in our culture evidenced by the universal agreement of the absolute date at which Time begins], our textbooks called it a "mandate" when a candidate for president won more than 55 percent of the popular vote.  I don't know the point in time at which "landslide" became more important than "mandate," but clearly it did at some point.  It may have been when winners started using the term mandate in exploitative ways, as when Fox News started talking about Bush's mandate because he won a majority of the popular vote in 2004, something no other candidate since 1988 could claim.  Or it may have been for practical reasons, such as the average newswatcher's attention span.  After all, a mandate--at least by the textbook definition--is something you have to wait at least a few weeks to confirm, whereas an electoral vote landslide is something you see in living colors, on a big map on a warm, glowing screen in your living room.  Push the remote button to reach another channel, and you see the same map, probably in the same colors, showing you the same landslide, and you get this even before midnight on election night.  Sometimes.

The fact that the question was even asked--and it is a good question--perhaps testifies to the fact that history books don't contain a definition of "landslide" the way they all have a definition of "mandate."  I expect that if is greater than 55%, then the newsies will call it a mandate for Obama's legislative agenda.  Whether the overwhelming majority call it a landslide has to depend strictly on a visual effect on a map, I think.  I voted 400+ in this poll, thinking that the imagery will favor anyone (i.e., McCain) winning the intermontaine west, due to the fact that the swath of land is so big because it's so relatively unpopulated.  You could win half the land and still only have 150 or so electoral votes, if you're winning states big in area. 

That said, no doubt many talking heads will call it a landslide if Obama amasses at least 300 votes, but I probably wouldn't.

Greater than 55% of the PV (i.e., 10% or more MoV) and/or Greater than 66% of the EVs (i.e., 356 or more EVs) = Clear Landslide

Anything over 300 the media will call a landslide.

I'm with angus.

In my college course during the '76 election we talked about 400 EV for a decisive victory. If we call that a mandate, then it happened 14 out of 20 times from 1912 to 1988. As you can see this was a routine occurrence. We were shocked by Carter's narrow win since it was the lowest EV total since 1916. A landslide had to be something bigger than a mere mandate at 400 EV.

However a funny thing has happened in the last generation. Both Clinton and Bush 43 have utilized minimum coalitions to win and we haven't seen 400 EV for one candidate since 1988. The media tends to play to a shorter memory, so even though I think a landslide comes with well over 400 EV and at least a 10% popular vote margin, I suspect that the threshold for "landslide" has dropped considerably.

If it were up to me (and when I vote it is ;) ) then it should be 400+. However, I'm sure that we'll hear landslide used by some in the media with no more than 350 EV. That would be despite Clinton getting 370 and 379 in his two runs, neither of which were described as a landslide.

Not if Ronnie didn't have a 20% margin, no. Landslides are very rare creatures in POTUS elections.

450- 538EV for a republican 1972-88 was common ( dems use to get their asses handed to them)


For a democrat I would say around 320EV because due to the make up of the country its hard for a dem to reach those southern voters.  I do think a Mark Warner or Jim Webb vs McCain this year would be almost 400Ev landslide.   Some could say Hillary vs McCain right now would be 400EVs.