Are Republicans ...

[Tender Branson]

What do you think ?

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Kerry is a straight-shooter who never wavers compared to Romney. Also his French is worse and he's less of an elitist.

[Sbane]

Oh yeah. I remember holding out hope till election night. Very sad.

[Torie]

About what? Who will win? No. Romney may have clawed his way agonizingly to making it a jump ball, and I suspect most Pubs in this hood agree with me.

[dirks]

This late in the game, Kerry was not in as good a shape as Romney is now.

[ZuWo]

I don't think so. Of course, I'm not in the US and have no first-hand experience about how this election is being perceived in the swing states at the moment, but I get the impression that Romney has the momentum at this point, which seems to be reflected by some of the most recent polls. Additionally, I don't think Obama's debate "win" will change that. Firstly, nothing groundbreaking happened yesterday. Secondly, foreign policy doesn't appear to be a very important issue in this election campaign. If anything, Obama should have received a bounce from the second debate, where I thought he was really dominating on the issue of Libya, but that didn't happen. I therefore think Romney is on track to win this election, something I thought would not be possible not too long ago.

[krazen1211]

Those liberals must have been hoodwinked by these Ohio polls. Certainly nothing in national polls explains such as Bush was always in the lead in the average.



http://www.realclearpolitics.com/Presidential_04/oh_polls.html

Colmbus Dispatch* | 10/20-29
2880 LV
2.0
50
50
-
TIE
Survey USA| 10/23-10/25
831 LV
3.5
47
50
-
Kerry +3
ARG | 10/23-10/25
600 LV
4.0
47
49
-
Kerry +2
LA Times | 10/22-10/26
585 LV
4.0
44
50
-
Kerry +6


Simultaneously they would have had to somehow miss President Bush cleaning up in Wisconsin and Florida polls.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/Presidential_04/wi_polls.html
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/Presidential_04/fl_polls.html
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/Presidential_04/ia_polls.html

[anvi]

I was rather surprised by the degree of expectation that Dems had of a Kerry win in 2004.  I watched polls closely for about a month and a half before election day, and it was fairly obvious, at least to me, that Kerry needed to win Ohio in order to take the race, and, though it was close, a number of factors made that doubtful.  So, while I was disappointed Kerry lost, I wasn't surprised at all, and was taken aback by how many Dem friends were totally dumbfounded by it.  To be perfectly honest, I think Pubs have a little more "objective" grounds to be optimistic now than Dems had in 2004, since Romney has actually surged in both national and swing state polls in the last three weeks, making it, as Torie put it, a "jump ball."  I still tend to think Obama will hold Ohio and Nevada and take a narrow win with less than 300 EVs, but I would not be shocked of Mitt won in a squeaker either--it's really close right now. 

[angus]

Possibly.  I remember knowing that Bush would win in 2004.  I also remember some Kerry supporters who really thought he would win.  Like Anvi, I was surprised at the expectations.  This time, I feel like Obama will probably win, but there are Romney supporters who think he has a good shot.

I don't think it's quite the same.  I felt certain Bush would win in 2004.  This time, I feel like Obama will probably win but I don't feel as confident as I did in 2004.  And it's different this time.  Romney and Obama are tied, within MOE, in recent national polls.  In the EC, they both have about 200 votes solid, which leaves at least 130 up for grabs.  It will probably be Obama 281 to Romney 257, but I'm not very confident about it.  I don't think I'm deluded, and I don't think other Romney supporters are.

[dirks]

The RCP map is pretty damning. Bush led Kerry in 9 of the 10 final ohio polls, and won the last 4 ohio polls in a row. The writing was on the wall for Kerry

florida was looking good for them in the closing polls though. I don't think anybody saw Bush winning it by 5...

[Franzl]

The RCP map is pretty damning. Bush led Kerry in 9 of the 10 final ohio polls, and won the last 4 ohio polls in a row. The writing was on the wall for Kerry

Romney hasn't had any lead in any of the last 14 Ohio polls.

[Sbane]

I think the race is about Obama +1 or even less, so yes there is more hope for the Republicans. And of course the people in question in this thread are the hacks, not the objective posters who don't just show up around election time to troll the forum. I think it all depends on Ohio, Iowa and Colorado. Watch out for Colorado...the polls might be deceiving there. On the flip side, the polls in Ohio might be deceiving as well.

[dirks]

The RCP map is pretty damning. Bush led Kerry in 9 of the 10 final ohio polls, and won the last 4 ohio polls in a row. The writing was on the wall for Kerry

Romney hasn't had any lead in any of the last 14 Ohio polls.

Yes he has, Gravis, ARG, LFR (which was posted here https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=162330.0) he's also been tied in 2 of the last 4 Ohio polls (gravis and suffolk)

[Franzl]

The RCP map is pretty damning. Bush led Kerry in 9 of the 10 final ohio polls, and won the last 4 ohio polls in a row. The writing was on the wall for Kerry

Romney hasn't had any lead in any of the last 14 Ohio polls.

Yes he has, Gravis, ARG, LFR (which was posted here https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=162330.0) he's also been tied in 2 of the last 4 Ohio polls (gravis and suffolk)

They're not in the polling database. I stand corrected.

Of course....I'd question those pollsters' reliability....but that's a different question.

[opebo]

...In the EC, they both have about 200 votes solid, which leaves at least 130 up for grabs. 

Haha, you must be one of those who think Pennsylvania is a tossup or something.  Maybe even Michigan?

In reality Obama has 243 electoral votes solid, and McCain 206:

[dirks]

Ohio is Obama right now. I think by a very small margin, just 1 point or so. But there are still 2 weeks to go.

[DrScholl]

I think that might be true in the end, it was only in retrospect that a lot of Democrats really saw that Bush really was going to win all along. Also, Ohio was the decisive state then and that's where most hopes were rested on, something that is true to an extent for Republicans this year.

[J. J.]

We are seeing movement to Mittens in the polls and the early voting is skewing Republican as a rule.  It is a reason to be optimistic.  

[angus]

...In the EC, they both have about 200 votes solid, which leaves at least 130 up for grabs. 

Haha, you must be one of those who think Pennsylvania is a tossup or something.  Maybe even Michigan?

I think Obama will win Pennsylvania and Michigan.  Like I said, he'll probably get somewhere in the neighborhood of 280 or more electoral votes.  PA and MI included.  I'm just saying that they both seem to have a floor of at least 200.  And no, PA and MI are not supporting the floor.  They're more like cornerstones.  Well, one cornerstone and one keystone, maybe.  Anyway, I don't disagree that Obama will probably win.  PV will be a tie, of course, but Obama will win where it counts.  I'm just saying I'm not as confident about Obama this year as I was about Bush in 2004.  As I recall, you were just about as confident at that time, just before you went commando, after you had your "epiphany" or whatever it was that caused your sudden realignment.

[Zanas]

What opebo meant, and I'm with him on that, is that for now Obama's floor seems higher than Romney's. That doesn't mean that Romney cannot clear the rest of the floor and win in the end, but Obama has at least 30 EVs more than Romney in his bag right now. I agree with opebo's map where you could just, maybe, put NV in grey, but that wouldn't be taking into account their likely D underpolling and overvoting.

[opebo]

Anyway, I don't disagree that Obama will probably win.

No, no, I don't have any strong belief at all that Obama will win, I'm just saying that I'm very confident that Michigan, Pennsylvania, that congressional district in Maine will all go Democrat reliably.  I even think Nevada and Wisconsin are pretty reliable:

However, even with this floor of 253, just 17 votes shy of the mark, I think this result is as likely as any Obama win:

[angus]

Then we're equally delusional.  I don't have any strong belief either, that was the point.  I'm just saying I think he'll win.  I'm not sure we disagree here.  Do you just like arguing?

What was my prediction map?  I posted it long ago.  There's a search feature.  I always botch that and have to use the back button and it resets or something and I get something totally ridiculous.  Okay, here it is:

Obama 285.  Romney 253.  (ignore the confidence map.  I never really take that one seriously.)

My map is almost the same as yours.  We only differ on Iowa, Colorado, Virginia, and New Hampshire.

[Wisconsin+17]

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Really Opebo? All white men are the same, so you can't tell them apart?

[Likely Voter]

In the national polls Romney is certainly doing better than Kerry, however Kerry was doing better than Romney in the states. That election came down to who would win 2 out of 3 of PA, OH and FL. It was also another case of an RV/LV split where if Kerry could get out his vote (especially youngs) he would win. I thought Kerry would win PA and one of FL or OH. It turns out that while Kerry had a good GOTV machine, Bush had an amazing one, especially in FL.

I think the same dynamic is at work this time. Obama's GOTV effort is said to be bigger and more sophisticated than Bush's was (and better than Obama's in 2008). The question now is, how good is Romney's and the GOP's (Romeny is actually more reliant on the party for GOTV, Obama's campaign pretty much do their own GOTV).

Bottom line is that it was not delusional to believe Kerry had a good chance of winning, and it certainly isn't delusional to think Romney is going to win.

[opebo]

...I'm not sure we disagree here.  Do you just like arguing?

What was my prediction map?  ...Okay, here it is:

Obama 285.  Romney 253.  (ignore the confidence map.  I never really take that one seriously.)

My map is almost the same as yours.  We only differ on Iowa, Colorado, Virginia, and New Hampshire.

No, no, I'm not arguing, just discussing.  We're not far off, no, not at all.  However my prediction is another matter entirely, and it is based on an optimistic but unprovable guess about Hispanics and turnout:

What I was getting at above was that I think the Romney win I showed was just as likely as any Obama win. 

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Really Opebo? All white men are the same, so you can't tell them apart?

Yeah, you're right - I find Romney far more dreadful than McCain.