Analogies, 2012 to prior re-election campaigns

[pbrower2a]

Using a Census estimate for electoral votes among the states:

Blank map for your use:

1. Barack Obama to William Howard Taft 1912 -- absolutely unimaginable. The Democrats have nobody like Teddy Roosevelt (unless Obama takes the role!)  

2. Barack Obama -- to Carter 1980 [49 EV] or Hoover 1932 [59 EV] (roughly 10% of the possible electoral votes and about 40% of the popular votes) as the result of a bad economy or a nasty international scene for which he is given fault.  

55 electoral votes -- you get to choose between Obama winning New York or a combination of Illinois and Maryland.

.......

3. to George H.W. Bush, 1992 [168 EV]. President Obama seems to have accomplished everything that he could, but has no clue of what to do next against a dynamic challenger.  There might be a weak economy.

169 electoral votes. Red -- move from optional in a Hoover/Carter scenario to sure things. Note the split of Maine. Pink -- additions.  Michigan goes to Obama before Washington, Oregon, Minnesota, or Wisconsin because of the large percentage of African-Americans for a Northern state. (You could have New Jersey and Delaware as an alternative to Michigan).

4. to Gerald Ford.  Bare loss [240 EV].

Old, sure states for Obama in the earlier scenario go deep red, optional go to medium red, new sure states go pink. The map looks familiar -- the choice is between all of the states that the Democrats haven't lost in a Presidential election since 1988 (243 -- include Pennsylvania), or those that have voted no more than once for a Republican nominee since 1968  except Pennsylvania (238).  Choose between Pennsylvania and a combination of Iowa, New Hampshire, and New Mexico for the closest match.  

5. To George W. Bush, 2004 [280 EV] After a troubled first term in which he gets away with a lot, President Obama barely wins a close election. He gets all the states in any shade of red, yellow, or white and either:

A. Virginia and Colorado (yellow) -- 280 EV
B. Ohio and Nevada (orange) -- 283 EV
C. Florida (green) -- 286 EV

(Ohio and Colorado, and Virginia and Nevada work well, too)

There may have been electoral shenanigans going on, or at least there are many rumors of such in the paranoia of the time.

Wilson 1916 is similar  (277 EV with 9 fewer electoral votes to divide).

Truman 1948 [303 EV] could be approximated with the addition of Ohio to Florida (304), Virginia and Nevada to Florida (305), or  Virginia and Colorado to Florida (302) -- among others. No new map is really needed for this scenario.

McKinley 1900 [292 EV] would have roughly the same map as for Truman 1948, except that in 1900 there was neither Oklahoma, New Mexico,  Arizona, Alaska, nor Hawaii, and DC wasn't voting.  That is 18 fewer electoral votes, and it might as well be considered "antiquity" as voting goes. I have said little about McKinley and Wilson, which is just as well.

So far that is one more than half (10 of 18) of all re-election bids since 1900. Others are landslides.

Remaining -- T. Roosevelt, 1994; Coolidge 1924; FDR three times, Eisenhower, LBJ, Nixon, Reagan, and Clinton.  Clinton is next-closest, and his re-election bid has a big gap between his and the next-largest (surprisingly, Harry Truman).

[RosettaStoned]

The third scenario seems likely.

[Mechaman]

1. Taft 1908 -- absolutely unimaginable. The Democrats have nobody like Teddy Roosevelt (unless Obama takes the role!) 

Don't you mean 1912?

[pbrower2a]

1. Taft 1908 -- absolutely unimaginable. The Democrats have nobody like Teddy Roosevelt (unless Obama takes the role!) 

Don't you mean 1912?

Sorry -- yes, indeed.

[DS0816]

Wikipedia and 270 to Win have Texas at 37 and Minnesota remaining at 10 electoral votes.

Any certainty about which is accurate?

[TomC]

Is the census over? Yikes, I haven't sent mine in yet.

[TomC]

btw, I'm going with 1912 or 1948.

[pbrower2a]

A big gap exists between the percentage of electoral votes that Harry Truman (57.1%)  and Bill Clinton (70.4%) got in re-election campaigns.  Strictly speaking, one could say that the "re-election" campaigns of Teddy Roosevelt, Truman, LBJ, and Ford were better described as "continuation" campaigns to win a first full turn. One might expect most re-election or continuation campaigns to result in wins of 58% to 70% of the electoral vote, but such seems not to happen. Indeed, no Presidential election of any kind has allowed the winner to claim between 57.1% and 67.8% of the electoral vote (Obama, 2008) since 1900.

It's not that the difference between winning by a narrow margin and by a big margin is California. California has frequently voted "wrong"; since 1948 it has been a reliable Republican state except in Democratic blowouts before 1992 and since then has consistently Democratic. It's probably now the difference between 85 and 140 electoral votes for a Democrat or between 400 and 455 electoral votes for a Republican. More likely it is that a candidate is down 315-223 to 360-178 still thinks that he has a chance to win if everything goes right and takes high-risk chances that can result in the race tightening or diverging more.  Maybe the race gets close; maybe it becomes a runaway. What is the consequence of losing 438-100 as opposed to losing 329-208? None! 

In the 305-380 range, a raft of states is typically moving together. For a victory styled after Clinton1992, Barack Obama would have to pick off all the states in yellow, green, and orange

from the Truman1948 analogue:

one gets to the Clinton 1992 analogue by also picking up everything in green, yellow, or orange... and five states in white or four of those in white and the three states in brown:

   

Coolidge 1924 is roughly in this area, too.

[pbrower2a]

Wikipedia and 270 to Win have Texas at 37 and Minnesota remaining at 10 electoral votes.

Any certainty about which is accurate?

You are right. Here is the blank map again, corrected to fit Wikipedia and 270 to Win (which I have used for calculations):

Victories by Obama analogous to Eisenhower1946 and Roosevelt 1944 (his weakest re-election campaign) rely upon

TEXAS

as well as the two Dakotas and Tennessee or Texas and two of the states in light green

or the five states in light green and the Dakotas. I am not certain that Obama would win the Dakotas before Texas.

The states in light green are the ones that Bill Clinton won in both 1992 and 1996 but Obama got clobbered in. Needless to say, such an Obama win requires him to win states that he has never fared well in politically. If he can appeal to the same people who voted for Clinton in those five states, he does get a strong landslide. That asks for a lot.

 

Beyond that? That implies a complete meltdown of the nominating process for Republican candidate for President.