Many who are contributing are overlooking several factors in the 2012 election; will enumerate them.
1. Presumption the 2012 election composition will mirror that of 2008; the core Obama support groups, will turn out in the same size and force as in 2008.
(a). Democratic enthusiasm lags behind Republican by a 10% margin.
(b). Most poll samplings are suspect, as they are based on the 2008 electorate model and overestimate Obama's support, while underestimating Romney's; instead of basing a projected outcome on the 2008 election; you should use 2010, 2008, 2006 and 2004 polling results and here you receive a more accurate sampling.
(c). Obama is burdened by the cloak of incumbency, and many in his support group, assume that a bad record (economic one that is, remember the old Clinton refrain of 1992?, IT'S THE ECONOMY STUPID); so a bad economic record is a sword, that cut's both ways; Obama used Bush's economic stewardship to great affect after the economic collapse in 2008, he was the challenger - now he is the incumbent and he has ownership of the economy, you may not like that fact; so Romney has a perfect right to hammer Obama, and given the tick up of 7.9% in the Unemployment rate and with a 2% economic growth rate (1.3% when you factor out government spending).
(d). You see a close election, 47.4% for Obama, to 47.3% Romney in the national polling, a statistical tie; with 5.4% with undecideds/unsure - if history is any guide, they for the most part break for the challenger.
(e). Look at Ohio, Democratic absentee ballot applications are down by over 181,000 - that number is subject to change: Republican absentee ballot applications are up by approximately by 75,000 - a number subject to change; roughly a change over from 2008, by over 250,000; Romney is also leading in early voting in Ohio.
(f). The national early vote, shows Romney by 7%.
So if Obama is expecting Ohio to support him on November 6, he will be sorely disappointed: but look at the stats, if you don't buy what I have just written. Just the fact's ma'am.
Come on, that's silly. You're making some biased assumptions yourself.
1. If Obama polls worse than 2008 he will lose. FALSE. Obama can lose 9 million votes relative to the Republicans and still win the popular vote. I don't think anyone thinks Obama will match his 2008 margin. But, Romney doesn't just have to do better than McCain; he has to do a lot better.
2. Pollsters attempt to find X% of each party. FALSE. Polls take a random sample, not a sample that assumes specific turnout. A poll that tried to have X percentage of democrats/republicans/seniors/whites/et al would be completely bogus but nobody polls like that. The reason that a poll is accurate is not choosing how many of each group to poll. The reason a poll is accurate is that they poll enough people to create an accurate sample +/- the margin of error.
3. Undecided voters always go to the challenger. There is no evidence of that.
4. We know the partisan early voting data from Ohio. Not really. Ohio doesn't provide data on how many of each party has returned ballots.
5. Better early voting numbers for Republicans will translate to signficantly better results. Not necessarily. Republicans might just be finally catching up on early voting but each vote is still worth 1. Republicans might just be shifting votes from election day to early voting. If every Republican in NC last time around had voted early, McCain would have crushed Obama in early voting but still lost the state.
