Talk Elections

As of May 10, Election Projection has Romney moving into an extremely narrow (49.3%-49.2%) popular vote victory while Obama continues to win in the EC by a fairly comfortable margin, 303-235.

EP has been active since 2004 and very accurate; they got the 2010 House elections (projection was R+64, result was R+63) and 2008 PV (projection was Obama+7.48%, result was Obama +7.27%) almost spot-on. However, its owner is a conservative Tea Partier, so if you reflexively distrust such types, I suppose this won't be taken seriously.

Here is a link: http://www.electionprojection.com/2012elections/president12.php

At this point Romney winning a popular majority and still losing the EV isn't out of the question.

Serves the Republicans right for what they pulled in 2000.

I'm not sure I believe it- many Dem states have higher turnout.

That depends upon GOTV drives that don;t begin until August.

This guy also messed up the 2006 elections pretty badly... but that still makes him 3-1. Also have to consider the motives of this. He probably wants Obama to lose, but wants the Republicans to be punished for nominating someone who is just as conservative instead of more conservative than their last successful nominee.

I've said before that if there is a PV-EV mismatch this year it would be far more likely to happen this way than the reverse.

This is why Romney has no chance. Momentum in his favor and leading the polls and he still has no path to victory. It's much easier for Obama to take the PV lead in the next 6 months than Romney to flip 270.

Now all the Romney campaign has to do is translate a lead in the PV into a lead in the EV and they are in.

I don't see how mathematically. Obama is going to destroy in CA, NY, and IL. TX can't begin to compensate for the combined weighr of those three. All the other big states are fairly close. And there just aren't that many people in WV and OK.

Possible for now. President Obama could lose an even shift of 4.0% in all states, and although he would lose the popular vote he would still win  every state that either Gore or Kerry ever won -- and Colorado and Nevada as well. Republicans would still pick up North Carolina, Indiana, Florida, Ohio, and Virginia. 

That's not to say that such will happen. Union vote drives in some northeastern states will likely push results to something similar to 2008. 

I wonder if you're going to offer us something more than another empty quite.

I really don't see this happening. Obama's GOTV machine is going to be most successful in big urban states, where his support has also dipped the least since 2008. Massive majorities in CA/NY/IL will help push him to victory in the PV if the election is close.

Aren't the various WI recalls showing that the anti-union vote drives are more powerful than the union vote drives?

I think this scenario is somewhat likely and credible given the dynamics of the race, but while on the site, I found the following projections for U.S. House and Senate:

House:
Current D: 193
Projected D: 191 (-2)
Current R: 242
Projected R: 244 (+2)

Did the Republicans manage to gerrymander the entire country this badly, or is this biased projection? I knew we would have difficulties reclaiming the House this go around, but how can we lose seats in this climate?

Senate:
Current D: 51
Projected D: 47 (-4)
Current R: 47
Projected R: 51 (+4)

Texans can send money to the Walker for Gauleiter campaign, but they can't vote for him.

The right response to "if you like your job you had better vote for Walker" is to tell the ideologically-charged caller from out of state  exactly what that caller wants to hear so... and then vote in according with what is best for Wisconsin. 

Republican state senators did badly in the recent recall elections... when you consider that those state  senators were able to win in a year(2008) in which Republicans did badly in Wisconsin. Most of those recalled were from very R-leaning districts. 

You're forgetting that reapportionment between the States also favored the GOP.  Of the twelve seats that were switched between States, 11 were gained by GOP states and only 1 from Democratic states.  7 were lost by Democratic states, 3 by swing states and 2 from GOP states.  So even before considering intrastate gerrymanders from redistricting, the GOP gained 7 or 8 seats just from reapportionment.

(Double checked my math and saw that the GOP actually gained more than I had thought at first.)

I hadn't even considered that. Thanks. As I said, I haven't dug into the dynamics of the HoR makeup post-redistricting. I'm guessing then we'll need to take a minimum of 30 seats to regain control, in a more Republican-biased playing field? Any information on how many currently held Republican seats can be flipped realistically?

I could make an issue out of your word error like you did with mine but that would be rude so I won't.

No way in hell the GOP gains seats in the House this year.

Well, OK, here's a link: http://www.electionprojection.com/2012elections/house12.php

If you scroll down a bit, you see he projects every single House race individually. Which ones do you disagree with? Because they all seem reasonable and they all do add up to a net Republican seat gain.

I look at the low approval ratings for Congress and I see lots of vulnerable incumbents. To be sure, most approval ratings show that people dislike Congress in general but theirs in particular. That is over.  Indeed, a recent poll asking what people thought of "their Congressional Representative", and the approval rate was a dismal 41%.  To be sure, some long-term Representatives will fit their districts, and they probably have approval ratings in the 50s and 60s... but extremists in moderate districts are vulnerable. Most of those are Tea party winners of 2010.

I don't know whether it applies to Congressional Representatives; it may change with redistricting in individual districts. On the average incumbent Senators and Governors whose approval ratings are 44% six months before the election have about a 50% chance of being re-elected, and the chance of re-election drops off rapidly to near-zero as approval ratings sink below 44% and rise rapidly toward unity as approval approaches 50%. Effective, well-fitting politicians show why they were elected and ineffective and ill-fitting politicians show that electing them was a mistake.

The general ballot for the US Congress favors Democrats in Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Colorado. For state legislatures (a good surrogate?) I see the same for Michigan.

       

I could say "guess whose talking", but that'd be rude too.

I could say guess who makes more grammatical and spelling errors on this forum than anyone else, but that would be rude, so I won't.

I could say that at least I put some efforts in learning a foreign language, very differing from my mother's tongue, but that would be rude as well.

Fortunately, neither you and me are rude.

And I admire you for your efforts.  Keep up the good work.

This is not accurate. I followed his site closely in 2006 and he got the Senate 100% right, his projections had the Democrats taking the House and he got every Governorship right except Minnesota.

You must be confusing his "projections" (based off a mathematical formula combining polling, partisanship and back then approval ratings) and his personal "predictions" (what his gut tells him).

That being said, the guy does have some quality control issues, especially at this point in the season. As an example, he has MA painted as having a GOP house pickup, yet no such change is listed below. This is a result of him having less time to devote to the site and thus less time to read up on events concerning each seat and update regularly prior to the primaries and such. Once the primaries are completed, the forumlaic projections take over and he fixes any misplaced candidate lists and miscolored states.

No, he explained that somewhere -- it's the same reason Louisiana is marked as 1 Democratic gain. Massachusetts loses 1 Democratic seat, so it's counted as R+1 (actually, Massachusetts is D-1, but in American politics D-1 = R+1). Louisiana loses 1 Republican seat, so it's counted as D+1 for the same reason. The formulaic projections have already begun.


Yeah. In 2006, his 'projections' were quite accurate, but he repeatedly voiced his opinion that the polls (and the projections based off them) were wrong and that Republicans would retain Congress. His opinion was wrong, but he doesn't base the projections off of opinions, but off of facts. He was more pessimistic in 2008.


Kalwejt speaks better English than the average Brighton Beach resident.

;)

;)

Jokes aside, I actually own a lot to you guys regarding improving my English,

What the hell do you mean no? I guess I just imagined sending him 5 or 6 emails pointing out errors in candidate lists and such back during the 2010 cycle. I may be wrong about the MA example, but my point still stands in general.

The projections have partially started, but it is impossible for them to be fully in place for a particular seat until the primary finishes. For instance, the generic ballot portion is in place as is the partisanship of the state or seat, but not the horserace polling between the candidates, since the candidates haven't been selected in every state yet. I can't remember if he includes the pundit ratings before the primary or not until afterwards.

He includes them (other pundits' ratings) now. And by 'no', I mean 'no'; your example about MA House races is wrong, there's a real reason MA is labeled R+1 even though Republicans don't pick up a seat there. As for candidate lists, I'm not one to deny you sent him 5-6 emails some years ago.

Even so that is a poor way to display the effects of redistricting in my opinion. Be that as it may, my point is that compared with 2006 when I started following the site and 2010, the quality took a hit as did his regularity of posting, indicating it is induced by lack of time.