I believe Jeb Bush and Rand Paul would win in this scenario -- 285 to 253
Key assumptions:
-Obama fatigue
-Lower turnout amongst the blacks
-Lower turnout amongst the Latinos with higher GOP percentage
-Voter ID laws taking affect preventing voter fraud
-High GOP turnout/Paul libertarian types unifying
-Cuomo's gun views hurt him in the midwest and even in Kaine's Virginia
-Nader-like 3rd party gathers 4-5% of the vote nationally causing some states to tilt
1. If there is going to be any fatigue, it will be against the Tea Party types. Republicans will not be able to get away fast enough from their troublesome positions fast enough.
2. Barack Obama did not run on an anti-poverty agenda -- perhaps because he could not get away with it. The Democratic nominee of 2016 will have more freedom to attack poverty as a political appeal.
3. "We gotta get better 'cause we can't get worse!" Voting habits among middle-class Latinos are already solidifying. You ain't getting Joe Hardy.
4. If there is vote fraud, it will be where it usually appears -- in the administration of the vote from registration to device tampering to misreporting of the vote.
5. The GOP depends upon a coalition of corporatists and the Religious Right (basically the Hezbollah coalition in a Muslim country). The libertarians and the anti-intellectual Christian fundamentalists could just as easily start turning against each other.
6. Sport hunters will know that they are safe from gun confiscation. They can get through the bureaucratic hoops that Obama gun laws will create. They already have to get hunting licenses. The proposed gun laws say nothing about concealed-carry laws, concealed-carry laws causing fear in criminals.
I'll give you Florida, but not Ohio or Virginia. The Favorite Son effect is as real in Virginia as in Florida. Colorado not going for the Democrat? Recent polls showed tighter gun laws very popular in Colorado.
7. Not likely.
Cuomo/Kaine 304
Bush/Paul 224
