Obama 2012 - Bush 1988 analogy?

[pbrower2a]

Scenario: the 2012 election pits essentially the status quo as President against a technocratic opponent who seems at first the best possible opponent and a likely winner to showing severe faults in his area of supposed expertise. Basically it is a rerun of Ronald Reagan's "third term" in all but name against Mike Dukakis. 426-111 in the electoral vote, and almost an 8% gap in the popular vote. Dukakis won only what were then the surest Democratic states and DC -- DC, which has never voted for a Republican nominee for President,  Massachusetts and Minnesota (the single statewide wins for McGovern and Mondale, respectively),  Hawaii, Rhode Island, New York, Wisconsin, Iowa, Washington, Oregon, and West Virginia (when the UAW decided who won in all but R blowouts).

An 8% gap might not result in roughly 411 electoral votes for the President -- or would it? 

[RJ]

Are you asking about how the popular vote compares to Electoral votes?

An 8% gap in PV is a pretty healthy one and I would expect whoever is on the sunny side of it to have over 400 EV's. I suppose it's impossible to make a chart of say 2% means 300 EV's, 4%=350 and so on since there are so many different results to draw from. I think R. Hayes lost the popular vote by almost 3% and still won the EV count for example.

May be a risky thing to predict but in this day and age I would still expect an established winner with a 2% gap in popular vote.

[Stranger in a strange land]

No, it wouldn't. The country is too polarized nowadays for that to happen. Obama beat McCain by 9 points in the popular vote, but still only got 365 EV. Obama getting 411 EVs requires him to win all the states he won in 2008 plus MO, GA, AZ, MT, and the Dakotas, which isn't going to happen this year.

[MorningInAmerica]

No, it wouldn't. The country is too polarized nowadays for that to happen. Obama beat McCain by 9 points in the popular vote, but still only got 365 EV. Obama getting 411 EVs requires him to win all the states he won in 2008 plus MO, GA, AZ, MT, and the Dakotas, which isn't going to happen this year.

Obama did not win by 9 points against McCain. He won by 7.3 points. Just check the atlas election results.

[MorningInAmerica]

Scenario: the 2012 election pits essentially the status quo as President against a technocratic opponent who seems at first the best possible opponent and a likely winner to showing severe faults in his area of supposed expertise. Basically it is a rerun of Ronald Reagan's "third term" in all but name against Mike Dukakis. 426-111 in the electoral vote, and almost an 8% gap in the popular vote. Dukakis won only what were then the surest Democratic states and DC -- DC, which has never voted for a Republican nominee for President,  Massachusetts and Minnesota (the single statewide wins for McGovern and Mondale, respectively),  Hawaii, Rhode Island, New York, Wisconsin, Iowa, Washington, Oregon, and West Virginia (when the UAW decided who won in all but R blowouts).

An 8% gap might not result in roughly 411 electoral votes for the President -- or would it? 

There are several, but just ONE fundamental difference between '88 and '12 is the economy. The economy was doing quite well in '88, and voter perception of the economy was strong (probably the only reason that Republicans were able to hold onto the presidency for that rare third term).

You also have to remember that for all of Dukakis' faults (and there were many), he was never really "proven" deficient in his technocratic ways. Massachussetts was doing great in the late 80s. What happened to Dukakis was the Bush machine ripped him down, tore him apart (Willie Horton, goofy tank pictures, etc). They made him completely unacceptable to the American public (precisely the Obama strategy with Romney). And by the time Dukakis stuck his foot in his mouth in the October debate over his wife's rape and murder, his fate was sealed.

[Harry]

On a tangentially related note, the Wikipedia page on the 1988 election is not well written. We need to fix that.