| Romney | Obama | |
|---|---|---|
| Romney Best Case | 248 | 290 |
| Current Status | 206 | 332 |
| Obama Best Case | 205 | 333 |
Colorado and Maine’s 2nd also go to Obama. Still haven’t missed one.
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There were no states called between 00:45 UTC and 01:00 UTC so there was no 01:00 update. But there were tons of states called between 01:00 and 01:15 though.
I also corrected the light blue line in the chart, which I’d neglected to decrement when Romney won South Carolina. That line represents the states where Romney was ahead by more than 5%, but less than 10%. The three scenarios remain the same though, as no close states have been called. In 2008, since McCain’s best case was still to lose, I also tracked a “McCain SuperBest” case on election night, the case where he would have won all the states he was behind by less than 10% in. That was to keep it interesting in a race that wasn’t close. No need for that this time. This time we wait for the states that are actually close.
Two category changes today. Frankly, neither are significantly impactful to the overall state of the race, but let’s take a look anyway.
I am showing a whole year on the chart since polling has been extremely parse in Maine’s 2nd congressional district. Like Nebraska, Maine gives two electoral votes to the statewide winner, then one each for winning each congressional district. Last weekend I talked about Nebraska’s 2nd dropping into “Lean Romney” territory. This weekend we have Maine’s 2nd dropping into “Lean Obama” territory. ME-2 has been very sparsely polled. Prior to today, I was still using the 2008 general election results to “pre-fill” the five poll average. Obama won ME-2 by 11.3% in 2008, so that helped push his numbers upward. With that rolling off the five poll average, plus an October poll showing Romney ahead by 5%, the five poll average drops to 4.9% and so I reclassify ME-2 as “Lean Obama” and I now consider Romney to have a chance there. 4.9% seems pretty substantial though, so Obama is still pretty safe here, right? Well, maybe. Bottom line is that ME-2 now joins NE-2 to produce the two “closest” electoral votes without a substantial amount of polling. Sure, the five poll average gives Obama a 4.8% lead. But if you only take polls from the last month, it is a tie. Now, there is reason to be suspicious of that poll showing Romney ahead, but it is what it is and I include it. The reality though is that like Nebraska’s 2nd, Maine’s 2nd is just an area where we’re somewhat blind. From the few polls we DO have, it seems the best we can say is that NE-2 is close, but still more likely to go for Romney, and ME-2 is close, but still more likely to go to Obama.
Showing a year of history here as well, since South Dakota is also sparsely polled. Unlike ME-2 and NE-2 though, which are closer than some states that are polled much more frequently than they are, South Dakota is sparsely polled because it isn’t even close to being in contention. With the latest poll Romney’s lead in the five poll margin drops to just under 10%. So I now classify it as “Weak Romney” instead of “Strong Romney”. But South Dakota is a long way from being in contention. Romney will win South Dakota. With that, it is time for the new map and summary:
Romney’s best case is one electoral vote better than yesterday since I consider the possibility of him winning ME-2. Basically though we’re exactly the same place that we have been. Obama ahead, but Romney can win if he steals a bunch of the states where Obama is ahead, but only by a small margin. Looking at the tipping point margin again:
The outlier in Virginia I mentioned yesterday and the day before still hasn’t rolled off, but the other states have moved in such a way that it barely makes a difference now. At the moment the tipping point state is New Hampshire, where the margin is a 3.02% Obama lead. If you “fixed” the outlier in Virginia, the tipping point state would be Ohio, where Obama’s lead is now 3.0%. Pretty much the same. So we remain where we have been. Unless the polls are all wrong and biased toward Obama, Romney has to make up about 3% in the key states in order to pull ahead and win this. Three days left until the first polls close and we start getting actual election results. Will anything change in the last three days? Probably not. But I suppose there is always that chance. Note: Chart and map from the Abulsme.com 2012 Electoral College Prediction page. Both assume Obama vs Romney with no strong third party candidate and show polling as it currently exists. Things will change before election day. On the map red is Romney, blue is Obama, gold states are too close to call. Lines on the chart represent how many more electoral votes a candidate would have than is needed to tie under several different scenarios. Up is good for Obama, Down is good for Romney.
Charts from the Abulsme.com 2012 Republican Delegate Count Graphs page. When a candidate gets down to 0%, they have clinched the nomination. If they get above 100%, they have been mathematically eliminated. The first chart is by date, the second is by “% of Delegates Already Allocated”. These numbers include estimates of the eventual results of multi-stage caucus processes which will be refined as the later stages occur. As I mentioned yesterday, Ron Paul had a big weekend in Maine. Green Papers has now updated their Maine Soft Count to reflect this. The previous estimate for Maine was: Romney 10, Paul 8, Santorum 4, Gingrich 1, TBD 1. Paul completely dominated the process at the District Caucuses and State Convention though. So now we have Paul 21, Romney 2, TBD 1. That gives a net change for the day of Paul +13, Gingrich -1, Santorum -4, Romney -8 Paul is clearly the big winner for the day. Romney is clearly the big loser. Of course, Romney is so far ahead at this point it barely matters. In terms of “% of remaining delegates needed to win”:
And Paul? Well, down from 114.4% to 113.0%. Still way above 100%. Not in contention here. Of course, for Paul this isn’t about winning the nomination. He is getting down in the dirt in the state processes. He is winning a number of delegates, and Maine marks the second state (along with Minnesota) where he now has the plurality of delegates in Green Paper’s soft count (and he is tied in Iowa as well). In addition, he is collecting delegates in other states that while officially bound on the first ballot for Romney, are actually Paul supporters. Even though they can’t vote for Paul on the first ballot, these folks could cause procedural trouble at the convention if Paul wants them too. Completely aside from Convention delegates though, Paul is using the process here to build an organization and to start electing “his people” to positions in the local and state party structure. In states like Maine, Minnesota and Iowa, Paul supporters are in the process of taking over the state Republican Parties. This will not matter in 2012, but it means they will have a bigger role in defining how the process will work in 2016 and 2020. Ron Paul is probably on his last presidential run, but the structure he leaves behind will be ready for Rand Paul (or some other Libertarian leaning candidate) next time around. Winning the nomination was never what Paul was about. Working to put the machine in place to gradually, over many years, bend the Republican Party in his direction… that’s Ron Paul’s game. I don’t know if in the long run it will succeed, but that is what is going on here, not an attempt to keep fighting and win the nomination long after it was clear that would never happen.
Map from the Abulsme.com 2012 Electoral College Prediction page. This map reflects Obama vs Romney. If any other candidate takes the lead in the Republican delegate race we’ll switch to making maps for them. So the latest poll in Maine (the first since October) puts our “last five poll average” up an Obama lead of 12.1%, so the state moves from our light blue color (indicating a 5% to 10% lead) to dark blue (indicating a lead over 10%). Obama won Maine in 2008 by over 17%, so this isn’t a huge surprise. This is for the whole state though. Maine is one of two states (the other is Nebraska) that allocate some of their electoral votes based on the state wide vote, but some of them by the winners in each congressional district. We have no polling yet for the individual congressional districts in Maine, so they are colored in by the average of the results in 2004 and 2008. So we classify ME-1 as Strong Obama (lead over 10%) and ME-2 as Weak Obama (lead between 5% and 10%). In practice these states have almost never split their vote, but it does happen sometimes… Nebraska split its vote in 2008… so we have to allow for the possibility in our model. Since this change does not effect a swing state, our summary remains the same:
And our chart over time…
Chart from the Abulsme.com 2012 Electoral College Prediction page. In the last month there have been 8 state category changes. 6 of them have gone in Obama’s direction. It will be awhile until the state by state polls are frequent enough and in enough states to be quickly responsive to the state of the race, but from the polling we do have, it is apparent that the continuing Republican primary battle seems to be slowly but surely weakening Romney’s hand against Obama. The expectation is that once Romney can pivot to the general election, he’ll be able to start trying to reverse that tide. But until then, he seems to just continue to lose ground.
Chart from the Abulsme.com 2012 Republican Delegate Count Graphs page. When a candidate gets down to 0%, they have cinched the nomination. If they get up past 100%, they have been mathematically eliminated. Note that these numbers include estimates of the eventual results of multi-stage caucus processes which will be refined as the later stages occur. The delegate count estimate in Maine is apparently a little jittery. On February 12th I posted the initial results as Paul 8, Romney 8, Santorum 4, Gingrich 1. On February 18th Green Papers updates this to Romney 8, Paul 7, Santorum 4, Gingrich 2. Today this seems to have gotten updated back to Paul 8, Romney 8, Santorum 4, Gingrich 1. So this means for the day Paul gains a delegate and Gingrich loses a delegate. At this point though, one delegate alone doesn’t make a significant difference in the overall picture. According to our Soft Green Papers plus DCW Superdelegate count though, this means Ron Paul actually pulls ahead of Newt Gingrich into 3rd place in the delegate count by a two delegate margin. So I guess there is that. |
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