| Romney | Obama | |
|---|---|---|
| Romney Best Case | 258 | 280 |
| Current Status | 206 | 332 |
| Obama Best Case | 205 | 333 |
At 04:49 UTC CNN called Nevada for Obama. The five poll average still hasn’t missed, but there are still a few states left.
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Between 04:15 and 04:30 UTC, three more states were called. Missouri for Romney, and Oregon and Ohio for Obama. All three of these were fully expected, but Ohio put Obama over 270. CNN waited until they called Ohio at 04:18 UTC to call the election, even though based on the polls by the time we got to election day, Ohio wasn’t even close. Once Iowa was called 9 minutes earlier, Romney had no more ways to win. At this point, the only question is the margin of Obama’s victory. As of this update, the five poll average hasn’t missed a state yet. Four states and two congressional districts to go. (Of the close ones… there is also Alaska and Nebraska’s 3rd, but those will certainly go to Romney.) Edit 2012 Nov 7 05:13 to add that last parenthetical note.
A bunch of states were called between 04:00 UTC and 04:15 UTC:
Only one of these mattered. Iowa. Iowa was a close state. Romney needed every close state he had left in order to win. Without Iowa, even if Romney swept every other close state (and Maine’s 2nd) he would only get to 264. When CNN called Iowa at 04:09 UTC, I called the race on twitter in these two tweets. Nine minutes later when some more states came in, CNN called the election for Obama. They were slow. More on those next states in the next update. Anyway, Obama wins reelection!
With this update, there are no surprises, and no close states called, so Romney hangs on to his one glimmer of hope… But the 04:15 update is coming soon, and the news is not good for Romney…
There were no calls between 02:45 UTC and 03:00 UTC. Between 03:00 UTC and 03:15 UTC Utah was called for Romney, and New Hampshire was called for Obama. New Hampshire is of course the one that matters. It was one of the close states that Romney really could have used… Romney’s best case is now hanging on to a win by the barest possible margin. He can afford to lose Maine’s 2nd congressional district, making this a 269-269 tie, which would give us Romney/Biden. But he can’t lose ANY of the other close states… unless he pulls a big surprise and wins a state where he was behind by more than 5% in the polls. Starting at 190 with the areas he was ahead by more than 5%:
That gets Romney to 206. Then we have:
The only thing on that list Romney can afford to lose is Maine’s 2nd. We only need any one of those remaining states called for Obama, and Obama wins his second term.
There were no states called between 02:15 UTC and 02:30 UTC, but one big update between 02:30 UTC and 02:45 UTC… Pennsylvania goes for Obama. This makes Romney’s path to win from the remaining states very very difficult… close to impossible. Let’s look: With the areas he is ahead by more than 5% in, Romney starts out at 190 electoral votes. Then we have the areas he is ahead in:
That gets Romney to 206 electoral votes. Then the remaining close states:
If Romney wins ALL of those states, he gets to a 274 to 264 win over Obama. He has 5 electoral votes to spare. He can afford to lose New Hampshire and Maine’s 2nd, which would give him a 269-269 tie, which would probably result in a Romney/Biden administration. But he can’t afford to lose ANY of the other remaining states. The tipping point is now Nevada. Obama was ahead by 4.8% in my five poll average in Nevada. This is almost over. Romney sweeping all of those states is basically inconceivable.
No states were called between 01:45 UTC and 02:00 UTC, but a ton were called between 02:00 UTC and 02:15 UTC:
All of these were no brainer expected states, except for Michigan. Michigan is the first state of the night to be called where the margin was less than 5% in the polls, so winning this state made a difference between the “best cases” that I present. Obama was ahead here by 4.5%, so a win here was predicted, but it was a close state and one that Romney really needed. As of the final update I made on election day, Michigan was the tipping point state. That means Romney had to win all the states he was doing better in than Michigan PLUS Michigan in order to win. He just lost Michigan, which means he now needs a state he was further behind in that Michigan in order to win. This is very bad news to Romney. His path to victory is now not quite impossible, but very close. Let’s look: With all the states he has already won, plus the uncalled states where Romney was ahead by more than 5%, he had 190 electoral votes. Then the areas he was ahead in:
That gets Romney to 206. He needs 63 more electoral votes. Looking at the remaining states that haven’t yet been called:
If Romney wins all of those through Pennsylvania, it gets him to 288 electoral votes, which wins him the Presidency. If he doesn’t win Pennsylvania to win, he needs every other one of those states, including Nevada, which would get him to 274. If he does win Pennsylvania, then he could afford to lose Virginia, New Hampshire and Maine’s 2nd (and Nevada). But that is a very tall order! And there will be another update coming soon…
There were no new calls between 01:15 UTC and 01:30 UTC. Between 01:30 UTC and 01:45 UTC, Arkansas, Tennessee and Alabama were all called for Romney… as expected. At some point they will need to start calling some of the close states, or it will be a really long night. :-)
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.
Still no changes to the three scenarios. No close states called yet. BTW, I am judging “called states” by CNN. |
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