The Defining Moment of the President's Second Term
Perhaps the most important moments of President Obama's second term will actually come before his second term officially begins.
The negotiations over the so-called "fiscal cliff" will represent the most critical decisions around tax and spending policy that have been made in 20 years.
A combination of President Obama's Health Care legislation, the nature of some of the temporary tax cuts enacted as part of the stimulus (and later extended) and the expiration of the (once extended under Obama) Bush tax cuts, have led the law to converge to where the following things will automatically happen on December 31st or January 1st, absent action from Congress and the President:
* Expiration of the Bush-era tax cuts for all income levels. Income rates at the low end of the income spectrum would rise from 10% to 15% and at the top end from 36% to 39.6%.
* With expiration of the Bush-era tax cuts, qualified dividend taxes would increase from the present level of 15% to normal income tax levels (up to 39.6%). Additionally, capital gains taxes would rise from 15% to 20%.
* Inheritance taxes would return to pre-Bush levels.
* Social Security taxes would return to their "normal" levels, a 2% tax increase from the reduced rates of the past 2 years, enacted as part of the stimulus and then extended.
* An additional 0.9% earned income tax on incomes over $200K for individuals and $250K for married couples would be enacted, raising their total income tax rate to 40.2%. This was part of the health care legislation.
* An additional 3.9% dividend and capital gains tax would take effect for individuals with incomes over $200K and married couples with incomes over $250K. The combination of this and the Bush-era tax cuts expiring would increase dividend taxes for top earners from 15% to 43.5% and on capital gains from 15% to 23.9%.
* Alternative minimum taxes would revert back to their 2000 levels, essentially wiping out the effectiveness of tax deductions and exemptions for the upper-middle class and above.
* Extended unemployment benefits would end, meaning that the current 73 weeks of extended unemployment benefits available to the long-term unemployed would be reduced to 26 weeks, taking millions out of the benefit.
* Approximately $65B in cuts in defense and $65B in cuts in non-Social Security entitlements and discretionary spending would automatically be enacted.
That's a massive number of tax increases and spending cuts all set to take place at once. According to the Congressional Budget Office, total taxes from 2012 to 2014 would rise by $774B. Total spending would stay essentially flat, rising by $33B with a 7% reduction (before inflation) in discretionary spending offset by a 5.9% rise in entitlement spending, spurred by the continued growth in Social Security and Medicare outlays.
In net, the deficit would fall to $387B from $1.128T in just two years, a dramatic reduction and the lowest deficit as a percentage of GDP since the Clinton surpluses and well below the long run average of the Carter, Reagan and first Bush administrations, even after factoring in the potential for a mild recession in 2013 as a result of all the money being sucked out of the system.
The fiscal cliff is actually not bad economic policy - it essentially amounts to finally taking our medicine and paying our bills. And it seems almost certain not to happen, because no one seems to have the guts to take the consequences of paying our bills all at once, particularly with the significant impacts to middle-class tax payers and the recession potential.
There are 4 plausible scenarios that I see for resolution of the fiscal cliff:
(1) Kick the Can Down the Road
I think this is the most likely scenario. With only 6 weeks to work, the potential for a compromise that all sides can live with seems unlikely, particularly in a highly polarized Washington. A bill that averted all or most of the provisions of the cliff for 4 or 6 months, to give the parties more time to work seems likely.
(2) Let It Happen
This, in many ways, is my favored choice, but seems the least likely to happen. I can envision a scenario where the President digs his heels in on taxes for top bracket payers and House Republicans dig their heels in on not extending anything until the President gives on that issue. It would be a policy that no one in Congress is advocating, but it has a small possibility of happening.
(3) A Grand Bargain
Congressional Republicans have indicated some willingness to increase revenues so long as tax RATES don't go up. The President could cut a more revenue neutral deal that caps or eliminates deductions for higher income earners but does not raise rates, in exchange for what Republicans really want, which is deeper discretionary cuts and reforms to Medicare. I could see a deal where deductions phase out about $200K, the Bush era rates are maintained, domestic cuts are made and Medicare retirement age is raised by a couple of years.
(4) A Partial Compromise
Perhaps they will split it all down the middle. Top rates go up, but not as much as Obama wants. Middle and lower class tax cuts are maintained. Spending cuts are made but not as much as Republicans want. And entitlements go unreformed. After kicking the can down the road, this seems like the second most likely scenario.
Whatever happens will have to happen before the end of the year, so it will happen with the old congress and technically during the President's first term.
The End of the Romney Era
When John Kerry lost to George W. Bush, he got to go back to the Senate and chair the Foreign Relations committee. He is in the running for President Obama's second term cabinet, being among the reported final 3 to run the State Department.
When John McCain lost to Barack Obama in 2008, he also returned to the Senate and became a voice for Republican deficit hawks and neo-conservative foreign policy.
Not since 2000 have we had an election where the loser is likely to fade completely from the political scene.
You see, while Mitt Romney has been running for President for the better part of the past 8 years, he has no post to go back to. He is clearly no longer the leader of the Republican Party and has no elected office to return to. There is much that he can do in private life, Al Gore has certainly taken the opportunity to leverage his celebrity for the personal cause of global warming, but it was odd for me to think that after 8 years of seeing Romney on TV virtually every week, he really has no place in either politics or the Republican Party.
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Showing posts with label Mitt Romney. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mitt Romney. Show all posts
Saturday, November 10, 2012
Friday, November 2, 2012
I'm Willing to Predict: Barack Obama Will Win a 2nd Term, Sandy Continues to Disrupt National Polling, Why Is Mitt Romney Headed to Pennsylvania?
First Polls Open In: 3 Days, 8 Hours*
Projected Popular Vote Total: Obama +0.4% (down 0.3% from yesterday)
Projected Electoral Vote Total: Obama 290, Romney 248 (unchanged from yesterday)
Current Betting Odds: Obama 67%, Romney 33% (Obama up 1% from yesterday)
Current Popular Vote Betting Odds: Obama 56%, Romney 40%, within 0.5% - 4%
* An avid reader has pointed out that my "first polls open" denotation is technically incorrect. Early voting is well underway in many states. I guess "first election day polls open" would be the right term, but you know what I mean.
There were only a few new national polls today (more on that later), but Mitt Romney nudged slightly closer to President Obama in today's projection.
But the real action is happening at the state level. The map continues to be stable, but at this stage of the game, the margins matter. And we now only have 3 states within the 2% band that I consider within striking distance. And those 3 states do not give Mitt Romney a plausible path to victory (more on that later as well.)
Accordingly, I am now comfortable projecting that Barack Obama will be re-elected to a second term as President of the United States.
Let me qualify that by saying that there is still a case to be made for a Mitt Romney win. The arguments would go something like this:
(1) President Obama is still under 50% in virtually every national poll. Undecideds will break late for the challenger and give Romney the narrow victory.
(2) No incumbent President has ever been re-elected to a second term winning less states than he won the first time around and it is impossible to see a path to President Obama winning more states than in 1988. It's win big or go home for incumbents and Obama cannot win big.
(3) The polls systemically overestimate Democratic turnout and the actual results will therefore differ from the polls by several percentage points.
(4) The national polls show a tighter race than the state polls and the national polls are generally conducted by better-established, more reliable polling firms. It is therefore reasonable to believe that swing states are actually in better shape for Romney than the state-level polling data would indicate.
While it is certainly not impossible that one of these arguments is true (the Intrade odds would indicate that people willing to wager money on the race believe there is about a 1 in 3 chance that it is), my counterarguments would be as follows:
(1) Recent history suggest no evidence of this rule of thumb. Undecideds in 1980 surely did break for Ronald Reagan over Jimmy Carter late. In 1984, they broke for Reagan again - this time as the incumbent. In 1992, undecideds broke evenly. In 1996, they broke for the challenger. In 2004, they broke evenly. There doesn't seem to be a pattern here to support the "rule of thumb" that an incumbent under 50% is in trouble - George W. Bush was under 50% in the polling and got 51% of the vote on election day.
(2) True, but irrelevant. No one had ever won 49 states...until 1984 when Ronald Reagan did. Candidates always win their home state - heck, even George McGovern and Walter Mondale did - until Al Gore lost Tennessee and the election with it. The winner of Missouri always wins the election - until 2008 when Barack Obama won without it. My point is that you can point to lots of things that are "always" true - until they aren't.
(3) We've dealt with this one extensively in previous posts.
(4) Generally, the evidence doesn't support this theory. On average, state-wide polls have been at least as accurate and often more so than national polls on election day...see 2000 for a great example of this. Secondly, while there are some smaller firms polling in swing states, there are also a lot of large ones - Rasmussen, CNN/OR and Survey USA are all poling Ohio and their results are actually well in line with other polls from smaller firms.
I don't see Romney winning the election - but, as always, I could be wrong. Similar to my point in #2 - polls tend to be very predictive of elections - except when they aren't.
Few National Polls Available
The fine print on my national polling data is that some of the tracking polls are aging significantly. Gallup, Ipsos and several others have not released polls in several days as they have suspended polling in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. I will continue to keep their data in the mix as long as it remains less than a week old, but this is surely hurting the accuracy of my aggregation model. My hope is that we will start seeing new poll releases from these firms prior to the election to make a final projection.
Why Go to Pennsylvania?
I wondered if the Romney campaign would put their money where their mouth is - and they are. Mitt Romney will be campaigning in Pennsylvania this weekend. He's also spending a lot of time in Ohio and some time in Wisconsin, but the Pennsylvania visit suggest a shift in strategy that is meaningful.
So why go to Pennsylvania?
Romney's camp says it is because he is expanding the map. Obama's camp says it is because Romney is desparate.
Truthfully, I think it is an ill-advised move. Romney's internal polling numbers may make him believe that he is actually in much better shape in swing states than I have him. But I still wouldn't go there.
Here is why:
It is almost impossible for me to envision a scenario where Pennsylvania is the "tipping point" state, that is, the state that gives Mitt Romney his decisive 270th electoral vote.
Certainly, it is not impossible that the GOP have been right all along about the likely voter models. So let's say that Romney is 4 points better across the board than what I am projecting, for sake of argument. If this is the case, he would stand to pick up Colorado, Ohio, Nevada, Iowa and New Hampshire. It would also make Michigan, Pennsylvania, Minnesota and Wisconsin among the closest states in contention. But it still makes no sense to go there. Colorado, Ohio, Nevada, Iowa and New Hampshire would give Romney the necessary electoral votes to win - he wouldn't need those other states. Pennsylvania would just be gravy. And let's face it - the game is about winning - getting over 300 electoral votes doesn't make you any more President than getting exactly 270. You would never risk losing the election simply to run up additional electoral votes you don't need.
The only way it makes sense to go to Pennsylvania is if you believe that it is possible that you might LOSE Ohio and WIN Pennsylvania (or lose Florida, Virginia or one of the other states that is crucial to Romney on the map as it is now constructed.)
John McCain pushed hard in Pennsylvania when he realized that he was going to have to run the table on all the swing states in order to win. It obviously didn't work in his case - he got trounced in PA, along with those other swing states that he diverted resources from.
I suspect that Romney sees that the map as it is presently constructed doesn't work for him - and hope to catch Obama flat-footed in Pennsylvania by pulling an upset there while Obama is focusing on trying to lock down Ohio.
In short - it is ridiculous to think Romney thinks he has Ohio, Florida, Colorado and Virginia all locked up and that he can focus on getting "insurance". It is far more probable that he is looking for an alternate path to victory that doesn't require all 4 of those states, 2 of which he is presently behind in, Ohio, crucially, by a meaningful margin. And that makes a Romney victory a long shot.
Of course, George W. Bush famously did go for those gravy electoral votes in 2000, campaigning in California on the basis of some tightening polls the weekend before that election. He didn't win California - he didn't even come close - and very nearly lost the election as a result of it.
Sometimes when you have been running a campaign for years (as is required these days), you don't make the best judgements.
If you like this site, tell your friends.
Projected Popular Vote Total: Obama +0.4% (down 0.3% from yesterday)
Projected Electoral Vote Total: Obama 290, Romney 248 (unchanged from yesterday)
Current Betting Odds: Obama 67%, Romney 33% (Obama up 1% from yesterday)
Current Popular Vote Betting Odds: Obama 56%, Romney 40%, within 0.5% - 4%
* An avid reader has pointed out that my "first polls open" denotation is technically incorrect. Early voting is well underway in many states. I guess "first election day polls open" would be the right term, but you know what I mean.
There were only a few new national polls today (more on that later), but Mitt Romney nudged slightly closer to President Obama in today's projection.
But the real action is happening at the state level. The map continues to be stable, but at this stage of the game, the margins matter. And we now only have 3 states within the 2% band that I consider within striking distance. And those 3 states do not give Mitt Romney a plausible path to victory (more on that later as well.)
Accordingly, I am now comfortable projecting that Barack Obama will be re-elected to a second term as President of the United States.
Let me qualify that by saying that there is still a case to be made for a Mitt Romney win. The arguments would go something like this:
(1) President Obama is still under 50% in virtually every national poll. Undecideds will break late for the challenger and give Romney the narrow victory.
(2) No incumbent President has ever been re-elected to a second term winning less states than he won the first time around and it is impossible to see a path to President Obama winning more states than in 1988. It's win big or go home for incumbents and Obama cannot win big.
(3) The polls systemically overestimate Democratic turnout and the actual results will therefore differ from the polls by several percentage points.
(4) The national polls show a tighter race than the state polls and the national polls are generally conducted by better-established, more reliable polling firms. It is therefore reasonable to believe that swing states are actually in better shape for Romney than the state-level polling data would indicate.
While it is certainly not impossible that one of these arguments is true (the Intrade odds would indicate that people willing to wager money on the race believe there is about a 1 in 3 chance that it is), my counterarguments would be as follows:
(1) Recent history suggest no evidence of this rule of thumb. Undecideds in 1980 surely did break for Ronald Reagan over Jimmy Carter late. In 1984, they broke for Reagan again - this time as the incumbent. In 1992, undecideds broke evenly. In 1996, they broke for the challenger. In 2004, they broke evenly. There doesn't seem to be a pattern here to support the "rule of thumb" that an incumbent under 50% is in trouble - George W. Bush was under 50% in the polling and got 51% of the vote on election day.
(2) True, but irrelevant. No one had ever won 49 states...until 1984 when Ronald Reagan did. Candidates always win their home state - heck, even George McGovern and Walter Mondale did - until Al Gore lost Tennessee and the election with it. The winner of Missouri always wins the election - until 2008 when Barack Obama won without it. My point is that you can point to lots of things that are "always" true - until they aren't.
(3) We've dealt with this one extensively in previous posts.
(4) Generally, the evidence doesn't support this theory. On average, state-wide polls have been at least as accurate and often more so than national polls on election day...see 2000 for a great example of this. Secondly, while there are some smaller firms polling in swing states, there are also a lot of large ones - Rasmussen, CNN/OR and Survey USA are all poling Ohio and their results are actually well in line with other polls from smaller firms.
I don't see Romney winning the election - but, as always, I could be wrong. Similar to my point in #2 - polls tend to be very predictive of elections - except when they aren't.
Few National Polls Available
The fine print on my national polling data is that some of the tracking polls are aging significantly. Gallup, Ipsos and several others have not released polls in several days as they have suspended polling in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. I will continue to keep their data in the mix as long as it remains less than a week old, but this is surely hurting the accuracy of my aggregation model. My hope is that we will start seeing new poll releases from these firms prior to the election to make a final projection.
Why Go to Pennsylvania?
I wondered if the Romney campaign would put their money where their mouth is - and they are. Mitt Romney will be campaigning in Pennsylvania this weekend. He's also spending a lot of time in Ohio and some time in Wisconsin, but the Pennsylvania visit suggest a shift in strategy that is meaningful.
So why go to Pennsylvania?
Romney's camp says it is because he is expanding the map. Obama's camp says it is because Romney is desparate.
Truthfully, I think it is an ill-advised move. Romney's internal polling numbers may make him believe that he is actually in much better shape in swing states than I have him. But I still wouldn't go there.
Here is why:
It is almost impossible for me to envision a scenario where Pennsylvania is the "tipping point" state, that is, the state that gives Mitt Romney his decisive 270th electoral vote.
Certainly, it is not impossible that the GOP have been right all along about the likely voter models. So let's say that Romney is 4 points better across the board than what I am projecting, for sake of argument. If this is the case, he would stand to pick up Colorado, Ohio, Nevada, Iowa and New Hampshire. It would also make Michigan, Pennsylvania, Minnesota and Wisconsin among the closest states in contention. But it still makes no sense to go there. Colorado, Ohio, Nevada, Iowa and New Hampshire would give Romney the necessary electoral votes to win - he wouldn't need those other states. Pennsylvania would just be gravy. And let's face it - the game is about winning - getting over 300 electoral votes doesn't make you any more President than getting exactly 270. You would never risk losing the election simply to run up additional electoral votes you don't need.
The only way it makes sense to go to Pennsylvania is if you believe that it is possible that you might LOSE Ohio and WIN Pennsylvania (or lose Florida, Virginia or one of the other states that is crucial to Romney on the map as it is now constructed.)
John McCain pushed hard in Pennsylvania when he realized that he was going to have to run the table on all the swing states in order to win. It obviously didn't work in his case - he got trounced in PA, along with those other swing states that he diverted resources from.
I suspect that Romney sees that the map as it is presently constructed doesn't work for him - and hope to catch Obama flat-footed in Pennsylvania by pulling an upset there while Obama is focusing on trying to lock down Ohio.
In short - it is ridiculous to think Romney thinks he has Ohio, Florida, Colorado and Virginia all locked up and that he can focus on getting "insurance". It is far more probable that he is looking for an alternate path to victory that doesn't require all 4 of those states, 2 of which he is presently behind in, Ohio, crucially, by a meaningful margin. And that makes a Romney victory a long shot.
Of course, George W. Bush famously did go for those gravy electoral votes in 2000, campaigning in California on the basis of some tightening polls the weekend before that election. He didn't win California - he didn't even come close - and very nearly lost the election as a result of it.
Sometimes when you have been running a campaign for years (as is required these days), you don't make the best judgements.
If you like this site, tell your friends.
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
The Big 2012 Electoral Map - Why It's Really Close and Why I Believe Obama Will Probably (But Not Certainly) Win, Foreign Policy Yawn, The Split Vote Scenarios
Days Until the Election: 13
Projected Popular Vote Total: Romney +0.2% (up 1.3% in the past 4 days)
Projected Electoral Vote Total: Obama 277, Romney 261 (Romney up 9 in the past 4 days)
Current Betting Odds: Obama 60%, Romney 40% (Romney +1% in the past 4 days)
It's close. It's very close. Certainly closer than 2008. Whether it winds up closer than 2004, when President Bush won re-election on the basis of a 2.1% margin in Ohio (New Mexico and Iowa were actually narrower, but winning both of those would not have put John Kerry over the top) remains to be seen. It would require a rare twist of fate for it to be as close as in 2000, when President Bush won his first term by officially less than 0.01% of the votes cast in Florida.
But it's close. Close enough that even if this were election eve, I wouldn't be 100% confident that my model would correctly project the winner. Certainly close enough that with nearly two weeks left until the election, I can't predict with any certainty.
But President Obama is still ahead.
Consider the case for Obama's re-election:
(1) President Obama has not trailed on my electoral map the entire election cycle. Not for a day.
(2) President Obama has not trailed in the betting odds on Intrade once. Not for a day.
(3) The electoral map favors Obama - even when he trails modestly in the national polls, he maintains his electoral lead.
I'm not saying Romney couldn't win. He could peak at exactly the right time - on election day. Democratic voter turnout could be much lower than the pollsters are modeling. We could still have an October surprise that could wildly swing the race.
But in spite of Romney's surge following the first debate, Obama is still where I would place my bet today. We'll see if I'm singing a different tune in two weeks.
What should give Republicans some encouragement is that Romney's paths to 270 have clearly widened. Ohio is still by far the easiest path and expect that to continue to be the most fought over battleground. But Romney could also win by holding what he has (which now includes a razor-thin lead in Colorado) plus picking up Iowa and Nevada. Or he could lose all 3 of those states but win by picking up Wisconsin. Or, in a very low shot, he could pull off a huge upset in Pennsylvania. But all those paths are less probable than the one showing in the chart above.
Who Schedules These Debates?
What the heck was the commission on Presidential debates thinking? Foreign policy as the theme for the closing debate?
I'm not saying that foreign policy doesn't matter. Certainly how we deal with trade with China, Iran's nuclear ambitions, Israel's place in the middle east, Iraq, Afghanistan and a whole host of other issues matter.
But recent polling indicate that 6% of voters consider foreign policy their top priority in this election. 6%. Why would we make the final debate that voters see something that only 6% care about. How about a debate solely on the economy?
And what a horrible set of questions on foreign policy. How can you have a foreign policy debate without a single question on Mexico, our immediate neighbor that has been ravaged by cartels? Not a single question on the Eurozone crisis, the single greatest threat to the world economy? 90 minutes on a topic virtually no voters prioritize and they don't even ask the most important questions.
At any rate, the poor topic choice essentially made the debate of very minimal impact. Polling indicated that President Obama modestly won the debate in the eyes of the majority, including myself. But it won't be a poll mover - Romney passed the bar as Commander-in-Chief with his command of the facts on the stage and beyond that, few will be swayed by competing answers on Libya.
Split Scenarios
Most Presidential elections end the same way - one candidate gets the most popular votes and wins the electoral vote.
In very close races, however, interesting scenarios emerge.
(1) The Popular Vote and Electoral Vote Split
This is quite a plausible scenario this year. I show Mitt Romney up by 0.2% and President Obama up in the electoral college. Even Romney were up 2%, assuming that 1.8% movement was evenly spread across the country, he would pick up only Iowa and would still lose the electoral vote 271-267.
I am personally licking my lips at that prospect. Following the split result in 2000, when President Bush lost the national popular vote but narrowly (quite narrowly) won the electoral vote, there was an outcry on the left for electoral reform. Since then, 9 states, all blue states, representing 132 electoral votes have passed laws enacting the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which would award that state's electoral votes to the national winner if states representing 270 electoral votes sign on, meaning that if states totaling 270 electoral votes signed onto the compact, the winner of the national popular vote would win the election.
The reason no Republican state has signed on is obvious - the electoral college was a structural advantage to the GOP in 2000. If that ceases to be the case, we would have a shot at real electoral reform.
Wouldn't it be nice if candidates had to campaign somewhere besides Ohio, Florida and Virginia to win an election? Shouldn't there by campaign rallies in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Dallas, Atlanta and all the other major cities that get shunned each year because they aren't in swing states?
On a related note, to validate to divergence of the state and national polls, I ran my current state projections through the 2008 vote model to see how the national vote might come out if the state projections are right. The results of that were that if all of my state predictions were exactly correct and turnout exactly mirrored the 2008 election, President Obama would win by 0.8% in the national popular vote, or a 1% divergence from my current actual popular vote projection.
This is well within the margin of error and also bear in mind that for states that are not close, the projection is based on scant polling data, increasing the propensity for error in those states. A 1% divergence fundamentally confirms my projection:
* The national vote is close to even
* President Obama is ahead in the electoral college
If you like this site, tell your friends.
And if you think my predictions are full of it - bet on Mitt Romney on Intrade - you can get good odds.
Projected Popular Vote Total: Romney +0.2% (up 1.3% in the past 4 days)
Projected Electoral Vote Total: Obama 277, Romney 261 (Romney up 9 in the past 4 days)
Current Betting Odds: Obama 60%, Romney 40% (Romney +1% in the past 4 days)
But it's close. Close enough that even if this were election eve, I wouldn't be 100% confident that my model would correctly project the winner. Certainly close enough that with nearly two weeks left until the election, I can't predict with any certainty.
But President Obama is still ahead.
Consider the case for Obama's re-election:
(1) President Obama has not trailed on my electoral map the entire election cycle. Not for a day.
(2) President Obama has not trailed in the betting odds on Intrade once. Not for a day.
(3) The electoral map favors Obama - even when he trails modestly in the national polls, he maintains his electoral lead.
I'm not saying Romney couldn't win. He could peak at exactly the right time - on election day. Democratic voter turnout could be much lower than the pollsters are modeling. We could still have an October surprise that could wildly swing the race.
But in spite of Romney's surge following the first debate, Obama is still where I would place my bet today. We'll see if I'm singing a different tune in two weeks.
What should give Republicans some encouragement is that Romney's paths to 270 have clearly widened. Ohio is still by far the easiest path and expect that to continue to be the most fought over battleground. But Romney could also win by holding what he has (which now includes a razor-thin lead in Colorado) plus picking up Iowa and Nevada. Or he could lose all 3 of those states but win by picking up Wisconsin. Or, in a very low shot, he could pull off a huge upset in Pennsylvania. But all those paths are less probable than the one showing in the chart above.
Who Schedules These Debates?
What the heck was the commission on Presidential debates thinking? Foreign policy as the theme for the closing debate?
I'm not saying that foreign policy doesn't matter. Certainly how we deal with trade with China, Iran's nuclear ambitions, Israel's place in the middle east, Iraq, Afghanistan and a whole host of other issues matter.
But recent polling indicate that 6% of voters consider foreign policy their top priority in this election. 6%. Why would we make the final debate that voters see something that only 6% care about. How about a debate solely on the economy?
And what a horrible set of questions on foreign policy. How can you have a foreign policy debate without a single question on Mexico, our immediate neighbor that has been ravaged by cartels? Not a single question on the Eurozone crisis, the single greatest threat to the world economy? 90 minutes on a topic virtually no voters prioritize and they don't even ask the most important questions.
At any rate, the poor topic choice essentially made the debate of very minimal impact. Polling indicated that President Obama modestly won the debate in the eyes of the majority, including myself. But it won't be a poll mover - Romney passed the bar as Commander-in-Chief with his command of the facts on the stage and beyond that, few will be swayed by competing answers on Libya.
Split Scenarios
Most Presidential elections end the same way - one candidate gets the most popular votes and wins the electoral vote.
In very close races, however, interesting scenarios emerge.
(1) The Popular Vote and Electoral Vote Split
This is quite a plausible scenario this year. I show Mitt Romney up by 0.2% and President Obama up in the electoral college. Even Romney were up 2%, assuming that 1.8% movement was evenly spread across the country, he would pick up only Iowa and would still lose the electoral vote 271-267.
I am personally licking my lips at that prospect. Following the split result in 2000, when President Bush lost the national popular vote but narrowly (quite narrowly) won the electoral vote, there was an outcry on the left for electoral reform. Since then, 9 states, all blue states, representing 132 electoral votes have passed laws enacting the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which would award that state's electoral votes to the national winner if states representing 270 electoral votes sign on, meaning that if states totaling 270 electoral votes signed onto the compact, the winner of the national popular vote would win the election.
The reason no Republican state has signed on is obvious - the electoral college was a structural advantage to the GOP in 2000. If that ceases to be the case, we would have a shot at real electoral reform.
Wouldn't it be nice if candidates had to campaign somewhere besides Ohio, Florida and Virginia to win an election? Shouldn't there by campaign rallies in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Dallas, Atlanta and all the other major cities that get shunned each year because they aren't in swing states?
On a related note, to validate to divergence of the state and national polls, I ran my current state projections through the 2008 vote model to see how the national vote might come out if the state projections are right. The results of that were that if all of my state predictions were exactly correct and turnout exactly mirrored the 2008 election, President Obama would win by 0.8% in the national popular vote, or a 1% divergence from my current actual popular vote projection.
This is well within the margin of error and also bear in mind that for states that are not close, the projection is based on scant polling data, increasing the propensity for error in those states. A 1% divergence fundamentally confirms my projection:
* The national vote is close to even
* President Obama is ahead in the electoral college
If you like this site, tell your friends.
And if you think my predictions are full of it - bet on Mitt Romney on Intrade - you can get good odds.
Sunday, September 9, 2012
The Big Electoral Map - Obama's Big Convention Bounce - Will It Last?
Days Until The Election: 58
Projected Popular Vote Total: Obama +5.0% (up 4.2% from 2 weeks ago)
Projected Electoral Vote Total: Obama 332, Romney 206 (Obama +38 from last week)
We are just a few days removed from the back-to-back conventions and the polling verdict is in: advantage Obama.
He has surged in the national polls, breaking out of a range he had been in of +0-3% to go up a full 5 points nationally. He reclaims all of the ground on the electoral map that Mitt Romney had chipped away following the announcement of Paul Ryan as his running mate.
There is good news and there is bad news for Romney related to these latest batch of polls.
The good news is that not all convention bounces stick. Michael Dukakis was famously up versus George H.W. Bush in 1988 and went on to lose badly. Bounces often happen for a few days as people bask in the patriotism and unity presented at these events, then fade as cooler heads prevail and people remember the reasons that they didn't like a candidate in the first place.
The bad news for Romney is that the shifts in national polling are not even yet fully reflected in the state polls as many of the state polls in my averages are still from prior to the DNC. It is very possible that Romney is behind in North Carolina as I write this and that Obama's margins in key states like Ohio, Florida and Virginia are larger than I am currently reflecting.
There is still a lot of race left - 58 days is an eternity in Presidential politics and there are still the 4 debates (3 Presidential and 1 Vice-Presidential) to take place, all of which represent potential key turning points in the race, but Romney has his work cut out for him.
To give perspective - the odds on this race are presently at 59%-41% on Intrade, favoring Obama, but not by a massively larger amount than it has favored him for the bulk of this year.
As a reminder, here is the debate schedule for this year (all times are Eastern):
October 3rd - Denver, Colorado - 9 PM - Focus: Domestic Policy (Moderator: Jim Lehrer - PBS)
October 11th - Danville, Kentucky - 9 PM - VP Debate (Moderator: Martha Raddatz - ABC)
October 16th - Hempstead, New York - 9 PM - Focus: Open - Town Hall Format (Moderator: Candy Crowley - CNN)
October 22nd - Boca Raton, Florida - 9 PM - Focus: Foreign Policy (Moderator: Bob Schiffer - CBS)
Notably losing out on debate moderation is NBC, which hasn't had the same kind of gravitas in the political world since the death of Tim Russert, who surely would have scored one of the moderator roles, had he wanted it. Also missing are the partisan MSNBC and Fox News.
What will be interesting in the lull period between now and the debates (which is almost 4 weeks) will be to see if Obama's post-convention bounce fades and if Romney's series of ads in 8 key swing states have an impact.
If Romney can chip away at Obama's lead in the next 4 weeks and make it a 1 or 2 point race come the first debate, then he will only need to perform solidly to stay in contention. If he is not able to move the needle between now and then, he will need a game-changing performance.
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Projected Popular Vote Total: Obama +5.0% (up 4.2% from 2 weeks ago)
Projected Electoral Vote Total: Obama 332, Romney 206 (Obama +38 from last week)
He has surged in the national polls, breaking out of a range he had been in of +0-3% to go up a full 5 points nationally. He reclaims all of the ground on the electoral map that Mitt Romney had chipped away following the announcement of Paul Ryan as his running mate.
There is good news and there is bad news for Romney related to these latest batch of polls.
The good news is that not all convention bounces stick. Michael Dukakis was famously up versus George H.W. Bush in 1988 and went on to lose badly. Bounces often happen for a few days as people bask in the patriotism and unity presented at these events, then fade as cooler heads prevail and people remember the reasons that they didn't like a candidate in the first place.
The bad news for Romney is that the shifts in national polling are not even yet fully reflected in the state polls as many of the state polls in my averages are still from prior to the DNC. It is very possible that Romney is behind in North Carolina as I write this and that Obama's margins in key states like Ohio, Florida and Virginia are larger than I am currently reflecting.
There is still a lot of race left - 58 days is an eternity in Presidential politics and there are still the 4 debates (3 Presidential and 1 Vice-Presidential) to take place, all of which represent potential key turning points in the race, but Romney has his work cut out for him.
To give perspective - the odds on this race are presently at 59%-41% on Intrade, favoring Obama, but not by a massively larger amount than it has favored him for the bulk of this year.
As a reminder, here is the debate schedule for this year (all times are Eastern):
October 3rd - Denver, Colorado - 9 PM - Focus: Domestic Policy (Moderator: Jim Lehrer - PBS)
October 11th - Danville, Kentucky - 9 PM - VP Debate (Moderator: Martha Raddatz - ABC)
October 16th - Hempstead, New York - 9 PM - Focus: Open - Town Hall Format (Moderator: Candy Crowley - CNN)
October 22nd - Boca Raton, Florida - 9 PM - Focus: Foreign Policy (Moderator: Bob Schiffer - CBS)
Notably losing out on debate moderation is NBC, which hasn't had the same kind of gravitas in the political world since the death of Tim Russert, who surely would have scored one of the moderator roles, had he wanted it. Also missing are the partisan MSNBC and Fox News.
What will be interesting in the lull period between now and the debates (which is almost 4 weeks) will be to see if Obama's post-convention bounce fades and if Romney's series of ads in 8 key swing states have an impact.
If Romney can chip away at Obama's lead in the next 4 weeks and make it a 1 or 2 point race come the first debate, then he will only need to perform solidly to stay in contention. If he is not able to move the needle between now and then, he will need a game-changing performance.
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Friday, August 31, 2012
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly of the RNC
The slickly-produced 3-day Republican National Convention is now done, culminating with Mitt Romney's unexpectedly passionate acceptance speech. Before action moves to the Democratic National Convention on Monday, I thought I'd reflect on what worked well, what worked poorly and what was just plain ugly at the convention.
The Good (and Very Good)
(1) Condoleezza Rice
Rice gave far and away my favorite speech of the convention. First, she has a grace and a presence that is seldom seen in political circles. She spoke from the heart and even declined to use a teleprompter, choosing instead to speak from memory. Her personal story is compelling and her views on national security, while all (including myself) may not agree, are always stated with intellectual force and thoughtful logic. She hit the rare duo of giving an intellectual and honest speech and arousing the passion and love of the crowd.
(2) Chris Christie
The night that Christie spoke was also the night of Ann Romney's personal speech about her husband. Most pundits concluded that Ann Romney's speech was highly effective and that Christie's was mediocre. Let me go on record and say that I think most pundits are nuts.
Ann Romney's speech may have done something to personalize the sometimes-wooden GOP nominee, but it was largely generic platitudes. No disrespect to the Romneys, who seem to have a truly loving marriage, but the fact that Ann Romney loves Mitt is hardly a surprise or a differentiating factor, and certainly not something anyone should vote based on.
Christie's speech was pointed and passionate without being caustic (as he has often been accused) or deceiving. His story of effective governance in New Jersey is almost all true. His line that "real leaders don't listen to polls, real leaders change polls" will probably be the one line from the 3-day convention that I will remember for a long time and I thought struck a chord with an increasingly cynical electorate. He represented the future of the GOP well.
(3) The Personal Narratives of Mitt Romney's Life
The stories, told by others, of the personally generous things that Mitt Romney has done to help children with cancer, a single mother with a leaky roof and many others personalized Romney for me in a way that Ann Romney's speech failed to do. I write a lot about politics and am not particularly prone to being emotionally swayed by politics, much less so by a heavily produced political convention, but I honestly walked away from those speeches believing Mitt to be a good person.
(4) The First Half of Mitt's Acceptance Speech
Mitt was fired up, patriotic and optimistic, possibly the three most important elements a candidate has to possess to be a winner on the national stage. He was believable and while he took President Obama head on, he did it in a reasonable way, steering clear of ridiculous allegations. His singular question "If you felt that excitement when you voted for Barack Obama, shouldn't you feel that way now that he's President Obama?" I thought was a simple and fairly damning indictment of the Obama Administration - those who voted for President Obama (myself included) are certainly a heck of a lot less excited about the President now than when he was a candidate.
Poor
(1) The Second Half of Mitt Romney's Speech
When he began to talk policy, Mitt utterly lost me, and I would wager, many independent voters. When he says a top priority of his will be to "repeal and replace Obamacare", I am still struck with two thoughts. #1 - Why are you so passionate about repealing a bill that is based on the one you created in your home state and that you wrote in early 2009 in a USA Today editorial should be anational model? And #2 (and more importantly, once I get past his big flip-flop) - replace it with what? What is the Romney healthcare plan?
Secondly, lowering taxes, increasing defense spending, protecting existing entitlement benefits for those retired and those slated to retire in the next 10 years and balancing the budget is a mathematical impossibility. Let me put it more simply - it is a lie. Mitt Romney is right to call President Obama on the carpet for not halving the deficit as he had promised to do in the 2008 campaign. But Mitt's plan is far more dishonest.
Finally, his foreign policy indictment of the President was, to me, bizarre. Lack of support for Israel is a legitimate issue. But Romney will be more free trade and yet impose sanctions on China? Does any credible economist or foreign policy expert think these two promises are reasonable? He would have done more with Iran? What exactly? Go to war? Romney would be wise to steer clear of foreign policy, as I think it is possibly Obama's strongest story.
One small but subtle final point - how can Romney simultaneously claim that we need to shrink the federal payroll but oppose defense cuts, in part, because they would "cost jobs" (his words in his convention speech)? Does it get any more hypocritical than that?
(2) Paul Ryan
The big idea, serious policy guy told a dishonest set of hackish talking points. I had some hope when Ryan became the VP pick that we were going to have a serious discussion about the size of government and the best way to reduce the deficit. After his speech, I think I can kiss that goodbye and officially label him an opportunist, not a serious thinker.
His indictment of Obama for a shuttered GM plant has been ravaged by the fact-checking organizations. Blaming the President for a factory whose closure was announced during the Bush administration is a joke.
His attack on Obama for reducing Medicare spending is absurd when his own budget contained identical cuts, as well as much deeper ones in Medicaid. Claiming now that he and Romney are going to be the protector of entitlements is a funny thing to say for someone who has hardly been an advocate for our entitlement programs in the past.
All the points above about Romney's speech apply just as much to Ryan's as well.
The Ugly
(1) Clint Eastwood
Might have been better to have him record a video or at least get him to agree to stick to a script. The rambling, off-message rant from Eastwood the night of Romney's big speech was an ugly distraction. I'm not sure exactly what Eastwood was advocating, but I think he said Romney would have brought troops home from Afghanistan faster? I almost felt sorry for the guy, he was so lost and incoherent.
Overall, it was a solid convention. It is too early to have a good poll read on the impact, although the last 2 cycles, convention impacts have been a lot more muted, thanks to the early exposure of 24 hour news networks. If Romney can get a 2-3% bump out of this, I think his team would consider it to be a success. Even that will be hard to measure with the DNC happening so close behind. I will try to get a read on the polls early in the week, before the DNC begins in earnest, to measure the Romney bounce.
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The Good (and Very Good)
(1) Condoleezza Rice
Rice gave far and away my favorite speech of the convention. First, she has a grace and a presence that is seldom seen in political circles. She spoke from the heart and even declined to use a teleprompter, choosing instead to speak from memory. Her personal story is compelling and her views on national security, while all (including myself) may not agree, are always stated with intellectual force and thoughtful logic. She hit the rare duo of giving an intellectual and honest speech and arousing the passion and love of the crowd.
(2) Chris Christie
The night that Christie spoke was also the night of Ann Romney's personal speech about her husband. Most pundits concluded that Ann Romney's speech was highly effective and that Christie's was mediocre. Let me go on record and say that I think most pundits are nuts.
Ann Romney's speech may have done something to personalize the sometimes-wooden GOP nominee, but it was largely generic platitudes. No disrespect to the Romneys, who seem to have a truly loving marriage, but the fact that Ann Romney loves Mitt is hardly a surprise or a differentiating factor, and certainly not something anyone should vote based on.
Christie's speech was pointed and passionate without being caustic (as he has often been accused) or deceiving. His story of effective governance in New Jersey is almost all true. His line that "real leaders don't listen to polls, real leaders change polls" will probably be the one line from the 3-day convention that I will remember for a long time and I thought struck a chord with an increasingly cynical electorate. He represented the future of the GOP well.
(3) The Personal Narratives of Mitt Romney's Life
The stories, told by others, of the personally generous things that Mitt Romney has done to help children with cancer, a single mother with a leaky roof and many others personalized Romney for me in a way that Ann Romney's speech failed to do. I write a lot about politics and am not particularly prone to being emotionally swayed by politics, much less so by a heavily produced political convention, but I honestly walked away from those speeches believing Mitt to be a good person.
(4) The First Half of Mitt's Acceptance Speech
Mitt was fired up, patriotic and optimistic, possibly the three most important elements a candidate has to possess to be a winner on the national stage. He was believable and while he took President Obama head on, he did it in a reasonable way, steering clear of ridiculous allegations. His singular question "If you felt that excitement when you voted for Barack Obama, shouldn't you feel that way now that he's President Obama?" I thought was a simple and fairly damning indictment of the Obama Administration - those who voted for President Obama (myself included) are certainly a heck of a lot less excited about the President now than when he was a candidate.
Poor
(1) The Second Half of Mitt Romney's Speech
When he began to talk policy, Mitt utterly lost me, and I would wager, many independent voters. When he says a top priority of his will be to "repeal and replace Obamacare", I am still struck with two thoughts. #1 - Why are you so passionate about repealing a bill that is based on the one you created in your home state and that you wrote in early 2009 in a USA Today editorial should be anational model? And #2 (and more importantly, once I get past his big flip-flop) - replace it with what? What is the Romney healthcare plan?
Secondly, lowering taxes, increasing defense spending, protecting existing entitlement benefits for those retired and those slated to retire in the next 10 years and balancing the budget is a mathematical impossibility. Let me put it more simply - it is a lie. Mitt Romney is right to call President Obama on the carpet for not halving the deficit as he had promised to do in the 2008 campaign. But Mitt's plan is far more dishonest.
Finally, his foreign policy indictment of the President was, to me, bizarre. Lack of support for Israel is a legitimate issue. But Romney will be more free trade and yet impose sanctions on China? Does any credible economist or foreign policy expert think these two promises are reasonable? He would have done more with Iran? What exactly? Go to war? Romney would be wise to steer clear of foreign policy, as I think it is possibly Obama's strongest story.
One small but subtle final point - how can Romney simultaneously claim that we need to shrink the federal payroll but oppose defense cuts, in part, because they would "cost jobs" (his words in his convention speech)? Does it get any more hypocritical than that?
(2) Paul Ryan
The big idea, serious policy guy told a dishonest set of hackish talking points. I had some hope when Ryan became the VP pick that we were going to have a serious discussion about the size of government and the best way to reduce the deficit. After his speech, I think I can kiss that goodbye and officially label him an opportunist, not a serious thinker.
His indictment of Obama for a shuttered GM plant has been ravaged by the fact-checking organizations. Blaming the President for a factory whose closure was announced during the Bush administration is a joke.
His attack on Obama for reducing Medicare spending is absurd when his own budget contained identical cuts, as well as much deeper ones in Medicaid. Claiming now that he and Romney are going to be the protector of entitlements is a funny thing to say for someone who has hardly been an advocate for our entitlement programs in the past.
All the points above about Romney's speech apply just as much to Ryan's as well.
The Ugly
(1) Clint Eastwood
Might have been better to have him record a video or at least get him to agree to stick to a script. The rambling, off-message rant from Eastwood the night of Romney's big speech was an ugly distraction. I'm not sure exactly what Eastwood was advocating, but I think he said Romney would have brought troops home from Afghanistan faster? I almost felt sorry for the guy, he was so lost and incoherent.
Overall, it was a solid convention. It is too early to have a good poll read on the impact, although the last 2 cycles, convention impacts have been a lot more muted, thanks to the early exposure of 24 hour news networks. If Romney can get a 2-3% bump out of this, I think his team would consider it to be a success. Even that will be hard to measure with the DNC happening so close behind. I will try to get a read on the polls early in the week, before the DNC begins in earnest, to measure the Romney bounce.
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Friday, August 24, 2012
On the Eve of the RNC, A Tight Race
Days Until the Election: 74
Projected Popular Vote Total: Obama +1.1% (down 0.8% from last week)
Projected Electoral Vote Total: Obama 294, Romney 244 (Romney +29 from last week)
There is no doubt that over the past few weeks, since the announcement of Paul Ryan as his running mate, Mitt Romney has been gaining momentum.
In 3 days, weather permitting, the Republican National Convention will begin. It is a star-studded event, whose speakers are highlighted in my earlier post. It will be carefully scripted and messaged and put together well, Mitt Romney should get a boost.
There is a decent possibility, perhaps even a probability, that Mitt Romney will be leading following the RNC (the second of my 7 key events in the race.) What happens after that at the DNC will set the trajectory going into the debates.
Stay tuned over the next week, the next chapter of Presidential history is well underway.
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Projected Popular Vote Total: Obama +1.1% (down 0.8% from last week)
Projected Electoral Vote Total: Obama 294, Romney 244 (Romney +29 from last week)
In 3 days, weather permitting, the Republican National Convention will begin. It is a star-studded event, whose speakers are highlighted in my earlier post. It will be carefully scripted and messaged and put together well, Mitt Romney should get a boost.
There is a decent possibility, perhaps even a probability, that Mitt Romney will be leading following the RNC (the second of my 7 key events in the race.) What happens after that at the DNC will set the trajectory going into the debates.
Stay tuned over the next week, the next chapter of Presidential history is well underway.
If you like this site, tell your friends.
Saturday, August 18, 2012
The Big 2012 Electoral Map - Ryan Selection Shows Some Gains for Romney, Conventions Take Form
Race Tightens
Days Until Election: 80
Projected Popular Vote Total: Obama +1.9% (down 1.9% from 2 weeks ago)
Projected Electoral Vote Total: Obama 323, Romney 215 (Romney +9 from 2 weeks ago)
State Changes: Colorado swings from Romney to Obama (9 electoral votes)
Since the selection of Rep. Paul Ryan as Mitt Romney's running mate, media coverage has been largely focused on Ryan and has largely been positive. This, plus Joe Biden firing off yet another in his seemingly endless string of gaffes, have moved the polls back towards Romney.
In addition to Colorado swinging from Obama to Romney, Ohio and Florida are now even closer (arguably well within the margin of error) and Ryan's Wisconsin roots puts that state in contention in a more meaningful way.
So, at least in the short-term, the selection of Ryan appears to have been a success for Romney. This was the first of 7 scheduled significant events in the last 100 days of the election that I discussed previously, with the 2 conventions and the 4 debates comprising the other major events.
Romney still has ground to make up, obviously. Even if Romney manages to flip Ohio and Florida, he will be at 262 electoral votes and will need to either flip Virginia or Wisconsin or some combination of two states between Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada.
The next major events are the Republican convention in Tampa and the Democratic convention in Charlotte. Let's turn our attention there.
Convention Speaker Roundup
The GOP is rolling out the A-list for the convention and largely excluding the more polarizing wing of the party. Confirmed speakers are listed below, including keynote speakers.
Chris Christie, NJ Governor, Keynote
Jeb Bush, Former FL Governor
Nikki Haley, SC Governor
Mike Huckabee, Former AR Governor
John Kasich, OH Governor
Susana Martinez, NM Governor
Rick Scott, FL Governor
Scott Walker, WI Governor
Mary Fallin, OK Governor
Luis Fortuno, PR Governor
Condoleezza Rice, Former Secretary of State
Pam Bondi, FL Attorney General
Sam Olens, GA Attorney General
Ted Cruz, TX Senate Nominee
Artur Davis, Former Democratic Representative
Rand Paul, KY Senator
John McCain, AZ Senator
Rick Santorum, Former PA Senator
A few key things to note. First of all, the outside-the-beltway focus is evident, with 10 current or former governors and 2 AG's speaking (12 state-level speakers) and only 3 current or former Senators, 1 Senate nominee, 1 former Representative and 1 former cabinet official (6 national politicans.) So, two thirds of the convention will feature people from primarily outside-the-beltway.
Also notably absent are the most controversial of the Republican politicians. Sarah Palin is not featured. Neither is George W. Bush or Dick Cheney. Newt Gingrich is missing, as is Herman Cain. This is, perhaps, the first time I can recall a living, healthy ex-President not making a speech at his party's convention, although there is still time for Bush to be given a speaking spot and if not, one can certainly understand Romney's desire not to remind people of the last Republican President.
Also of note is the diversity of the speakers. Of the 18 that have been named, fully one third are ethnic minorities with 3 featured hispanics (Cruz, Fortuno and Martinez), 2 featured African-Americans (Davis and Rice) and 1 featured Indian-American (Haley.) 5 of the 18 speakers are women (Bondi, Haley, Martinez, Rice and Fallin.)
I think the focus on diversity is progress. While Democrats will say it is a cynical attempt to win hispanic votes and appear inclusive to swing white voters, I say that even if that is the motivation, the very fact that the GOP chooses to focus on highlighting diversity in the party is a good thing.
On the Democratic side, the schedule is far less formed. Confirmed so far are:
Bill Clinton, Former President
Jimmy Carter, Former President (by video)
Michele Obama, First Lady
Julian Castro, San Antonio Mayor
Elizabeth Warren, MA Senate Candidate
Stay tuned.
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Days Until Election: 80
Projected Popular Vote Total: Obama +1.9% (down 1.9% from 2 weeks ago)
Projected Electoral Vote Total: Obama 323, Romney 215 (Romney +9 from 2 weeks ago)
State Changes: Colorado swings from Romney to Obama (9 electoral votes)
In addition to Colorado swinging from Obama to Romney, Ohio and Florida are now even closer (arguably well within the margin of error) and Ryan's Wisconsin roots puts that state in contention in a more meaningful way.
So, at least in the short-term, the selection of Ryan appears to have been a success for Romney. This was the first of 7 scheduled significant events in the last 100 days of the election that I discussed previously, with the 2 conventions and the 4 debates comprising the other major events.
Romney still has ground to make up, obviously. Even if Romney manages to flip Ohio and Florida, he will be at 262 electoral votes and will need to either flip Virginia or Wisconsin or some combination of two states between Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada.
The next major events are the Republican convention in Tampa and the Democratic convention in Charlotte. Let's turn our attention there.
Convention Speaker Roundup
The GOP is rolling out the A-list for the convention and largely excluding the more polarizing wing of the party. Confirmed speakers are listed below, including keynote speakers.
Chris Christie, NJ Governor, Keynote
Jeb Bush, Former FL Governor
Nikki Haley, SC Governor
Mike Huckabee, Former AR Governor
John Kasich, OH Governor
Susana Martinez, NM Governor
Rick Scott, FL Governor
Scott Walker, WI Governor
Mary Fallin, OK Governor
Luis Fortuno, PR Governor
Condoleezza Rice, Former Secretary of State
Pam Bondi, FL Attorney General
Sam Olens, GA Attorney General
Ted Cruz, TX Senate Nominee
Artur Davis, Former Democratic Representative
Rand Paul, KY Senator
John McCain, AZ Senator
Rick Santorum, Former PA Senator
A few key things to note. First of all, the outside-the-beltway focus is evident, with 10 current or former governors and 2 AG's speaking (12 state-level speakers) and only 3 current or former Senators, 1 Senate nominee, 1 former Representative and 1 former cabinet official (6 national politicans.) So, two thirds of the convention will feature people from primarily outside-the-beltway.
Also notably absent are the most controversial of the Republican politicians. Sarah Palin is not featured. Neither is George W. Bush or Dick Cheney. Newt Gingrich is missing, as is Herman Cain. This is, perhaps, the first time I can recall a living, healthy ex-President not making a speech at his party's convention, although there is still time for Bush to be given a speaking spot and if not, one can certainly understand Romney's desire not to remind people of the last Republican President.
Also of note is the diversity of the speakers. Of the 18 that have been named, fully one third are ethnic minorities with 3 featured hispanics (Cruz, Fortuno and Martinez), 2 featured African-Americans (Davis and Rice) and 1 featured Indian-American (Haley.) 5 of the 18 speakers are women (Bondi, Haley, Martinez, Rice and Fallin.)
I think the focus on diversity is progress. While Democrats will say it is a cynical attempt to win hispanic votes and appear inclusive to swing white voters, I say that even if that is the motivation, the very fact that the GOP chooses to focus on highlighting diversity in the party is a good thing.
On the Democratic side, the schedule is far less formed. Confirmed so far are:
Bill Clinton, Former President
Jimmy Carter, Former President (by video)
Michele Obama, First Lady
Julian Castro, San Antonio Mayor
Elizabeth Warren, MA Senate Candidate
Stay tuned.
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Sunday, August 12, 2012
Who is Rep. Paul Ryan and What Does His Selection Mean?
Vice Presidential candidates generally don't decide general elections. Some of the most widely panned Vice Presidential selections have still resulted in candidates being elected, Spiro Agnew and Dan Quayle being obvious examples. Many great Vice Presidential picks have failed to life tickets, including the original compassionate conservative, Jack Kemp in 1996 being an obvious example.
Vice Presidential candidates who don't win become forgotten in history. Does anyone remember who Adali Stevenson's running mates were in 1952 and 1956? Let's try an easier one - do you remember who Gerald Ford ran with in 1976? The answers, for the curious, are John Sparkman, Estes Kafauver and Bob Dole, two names you probably don't even know and one that you know only because he was a Presidential candidate 20 years later.
So, to reinforce what I've often said, I find it highly unlikely that the selection of Rep. Paul Ryan (WI) as Mitt Romney's running mate will make or break the election either way. He is unlikely to torpedo and otherwise winning ticket and he is unlikely to bolster an otherwise faltering ticket in a meaningful way.
But Vice Presidential picks do reveal a lot about the Presidential candidates, as they are the first governing choice that they will make.
In 1980, we learned that Ronald Reagan, in spite of lofty rhetoric, was at heart a pragmatist, understanding that he needed to surround himself with smart people who knew more about areas like foreign policy, than he did. George Herbert Walker Bush had been a bitter primary rival and was very much at odds with Reagan's economic policy, but Reagan knew a good executor when he saw one.
In 1988, we learned that George Herbert Walker Bush wanted nothing so much as to appease the right wing of the party. Everyone realized Dan Quayle wasn't the best qualified candidate for the job, but Bush had fences to mend with conservatives.
In 1992, we learned that Bill Clinton prized an intellectual equal and wanted to be surrounded by very bright people. It was also an indication that Clinton, a classic Center-Left Democrat, might have a little more left in him than center.
In 2000, we learned that George W. Bush prized loyalty immensely and wanted to be around people he was comfortable with, a theme we saw throughout his administration, where he frequently surrounded himself with people who had been with him his whole career.
In 2008, we learned that Barack Obama wanted to "first do no harm", picking a clearly qualified Veep who was uncontroversial and unlikely to get him trouble (frequent gaffes aside.) We also learned that Obama didn't like being told what to do, roundly rejecting the easy choice of Hillary Clinton to forge his own path.
So what do we learn about Mitt Romney in 2012?
First, we learn that he is first and foremost, going to run an economic and budgetary campaign. This comes as no surprise as economics are front and center in the national concern and Romney has always showed something between disdain and discomfort discussing social policy. Secondly, we learn that Romney behaves in his hiring decisions like a CEO - he needs an economic and budgetary plan, so he hires the smartest young economic thinker in the GOP. We also learn from a political standpoint that Romney is far more interested in running a base turnout election than a swing-voter election - Ryan energizes economic conservatives and tea party-types but does little with moderate voters and opens Romney up to all kinds of attacks about Ryan's plans for Medicare and Medicaid.
Paul Ryan would not have been my first choice if I were a political adviser to Romney. Bobby Jindal would have been a solid conservative (appease the base), experienced governor (buttresses Romney's executive experience argument) and a non-overshadowing force in the campaign. Paul Ryan does not bring governing experience - how can Romney argue business and governing experience is so critical when his 2nd choice for President doesn't have any? Ryan may overshadow Romney as he is a much more respected thinker in the party.
But, apparently, CEO Romney is much more concerned with hiring the guy with the plan than what that guy will mean to the campaign. And like I said, it probably won't decide the election, so Romney is probably well-advised to pick someone with whom he is comfortable.
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Vice Presidential candidates who don't win become forgotten in history. Does anyone remember who Adali Stevenson's running mates were in 1952 and 1956? Let's try an easier one - do you remember who Gerald Ford ran with in 1976? The answers, for the curious, are John Sparkman, Estes Kafauver and Bob Dole, two names you probably don't even know and one that you know only because he was a Presidential candidate 20 years later.
So, to reinforce what I've often said, I find it highly unlikely that the selection of Rep. Paul Ryan (WI) as Mitt Romney's running mate will make or break the election either way. He is unlikely to torpedo and otherwise winning ticket and he is unlikely to bolster an otherwise faltering ticket in a meaningful way.
But Vice Presidential picks do reveal a lot about the Presidential candidates, as they are the first governing choice that they will make.
In 1980, we learned that Ronald Reagan, in spite of lofty rhetoric, was at heart a pragmatist, understanding that he needed to surround himself with smart people who knew more about areas like foreign policy, than he did. George Herbert Walker Bush had been a bitter primary rival and was very much at odds with Reagan's economic policy, but Reagan knew a good executor when he saw one.
In 1988, we learned that George Herbert Walker Bush wanted nothing so much as to appease the right wing of the party. Everyone realized Dan Quayle wasn't the best qualified candidate for the job, but Bush had fences to mend with conservatives.
In 1992, we learned that Bill Clinton prized an intellectual equal and wanted to be surrounded by very bright people. It was also an indication that Clinton, a classic Center-Left Democrat, might have a little more left in him than center.
In 2000, we learned that George W. Bush prized loyalty immensely and wanted to be around people he was comfortable with, a theme we saw throughout his administration, where he frequently surrounded himself with people who had been with him his whole career.
In 2008, we learned that Barack Obama wanted to "first do no harm", picking a clearly qualified Veep who was uncontroversial and unlikely to get him trouble (frequent gaffes aside.) We also learned that Obama didn't like being told what to do, roundly rejecting the easy choice of Hillary Clinton to forge his own path.
So what do we learn about Mitt Romney in 2012?
First, we learn that he is first and foremost, going to run an economic and budgetary campaign. This comes as no surprise as economics are front and center in the national concern and Romney has always showed something between disdain and discomfort discussing social policy. Secondly, we learn that Romney behaves in his hiring decisions like a CEO - he needs an economic and budgetary plan, so he hires the smartest young economic thinker in the GOP. We also learn from a political standpoint that Romney is far more interested in running a base turnout election than a swing-voter election - Ryan energizes economic conservatives and tea party-types but does little with moderate voters and opens Romney up to all kinds of attacks about Ryan's plans for Medicare and Medicaid.
Paul Ryan would not have been my first choice if I were a political adviser to Romney. Bobby Jindal would have been a solid conservative (appease the base), experienced governor (buttresses Romney's executive experience argument) and a non-overshadowing force in the campaign. Paul Ryan does not bring governing experience - how can Romney argue business and governing experience is so critical when his 2nd choice for President doesn't have any? Ryan may overshadow Romney as he is a much more respected thinker in the party.
But, apparently, CEO Romney is much more concerned with hiring the guy with the plan than what that guy will mean to the campaign. And like I said, it probably won't decide the election, so Romney is probably well-advised to pick someone with whom he is comfortable.
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Sunday, August 5, 2012
A Bad Week for Romney, Does He Need a Game Change?
Obama Lead Widens
Days Until the Election: 93
Projected Popular Vote Total: Obama +3.8% (+3.5% from last week)
Projected Electoral Vote Total: Obama 332, Romney 206 (unchanged from last week)
The last time that I actually flipped a state on my electoral vote projection was June 30th. For a race that is supposed to be neck-and-neck and back-and-forth, that is pretty remarkable...5+ weeks of essentially the same map. And the map is not so kind to Mitt Romney - it shows a pretty resounding victory for President Obama. Not quite the 365 to 173 whacking that he gave to John McCain in 2008, but a large enough cushion that if the election were being held today, Obama advisers wouldn't be worried about a state here or there.
No states flip this week either, but the trend is decidedly for the President over the course of the past week. He picks up 3.5% in the average of national polls and moves up the strength of several states. For the first time in a long time, he now has 271 electoral votes in either the "safe", "strong" or "likely" category for him. This is big because it means that the President could lose every single close state - North Carolina, Florida, Virginia, New Hampshire, Colorado, Ohio, Iowa and Nevada, and still win the electoral college 271 - 267.
The reason for this, of course, is the state of Ohio, which now sits in the Likely Obama category. It is virtually impossible for a Republican to win without Ohio. No Republican has ever won the Presidency without winning Ohio, going all the way back to the founding of the party in 1856. Romney HAS to win there to open up the map to possible paths to 270 for him. If he loses in Ohio, as the present polling would indicate, it's game over early on.
Romney's bad week has been the result of several things. His first foreign trip was more or less a disaster as he offended the Brits by saying they might not be prepared for the election, offended Muslims across the world by saying that Palestinian poverty was the result of an inferior culture (no, that isn't taken out of context) and his campaign advisers offended the Polish by cursing at reporters during a trip to a sacred burial site. In short, Romney looked not ready for prime-time on the world stage, and not appearing Presidential is an important defect for a challenger.
Also starting to move the polls is massive spending by the Obama campaign. Ironically, after caving into the congressional Republicans to extend the Bush tax cuts for all incomes this year, Obama is campaigning hard on NOT extending the cuts again. And it seems to be working. You may call it cheap class warfare (and I have at times), but the theme of "Romney is an out-of-touch rich guy" combined with "the rich need to pay their fair share" and "Romney is a repeat of the Bush policies" are having a meaningful impact on the race.
Finally, the economic news has been relatively good. It certainly hasn't been the V recovery that I had hoped for (and erroneously predicted) 3 years ago, but the stock market is double what it was then and we had another month of significant, although not stellar job growth.
Put it all together and Romney has some work to do after the Olympics to regain a solid footing in the race. Things are certainly not insurmountable for him at this stage - after all a 3.8% lead can evaporate in a few days if the right events happen, but he has to be careful not to let this race get too far away from him given the strength of the coffers and strategy of the Obama campaign.
Game Changing or Safe VP Pick?
Romney's inability so far to close the gap has many among the GOP faithful calling for a bolder pick for his VP. Rob Portman and Tim Pawlenty are the two heavy favorites for the nod and both represent very safe picks - unexciting but unoffensive soldiers who possess solid, but not radical, conservative credentials and would widely be seen as qualified to be President on day one.
The call is for a pick like Marco Rubio or Paul Ryan, Rubio for his youth and the energy of support for him from the Tea Party, Ryan for his conservative budget credibility, something which could be a big help for Romney, who has struggled to articulate any kind of cohesive economic and budget philosophy.
My bet is still on the safe picks and probably rightly so. I've made this point before, but it bears repeating - I cannot think of a single winning Presidential Candidate who won because of his VP pick. VP picks generally can only hurt not help, so the first principle should be to do no harm.
Pawlenty seems like the best choice of the bunch. Outside the beltway, conservative but mainstream, has run things and therefore buttresses the Romney argument of executive experience. And he is not at all gaffe-prone. But it's Romney's call, obviously, and how and what he decides will be our first big reveal into how he might govern.
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Days Until the Election: 93
Projected Popular Vote Total: Obama +3.8% (+3.5% from last week)
Projected Electoral Vote Total: Obama 332, Romney 206 (unchanged from last week)
The last time that I actually flipped a state on my electoral vote projection was June 30th. For a race that is supposed to be neck-and-neck and back-and-forth, that is pretty remarkable...5+ weeks of essentially the same map. And the map is not so kind to Mitt Romney - it shows a pretty resounding victory for President Obama. Not quite the 365 to 173 whacking that he gave to John McCain in 2008, but a large enough cushion that if the election were being held today, Obama advisers wouldn't be worried about a state here or there.
No states flip this week either, but the trend is decidedly for the President over the course of the past week. He picks up 3.5% in the average of national polls and moves up the strength of several states. For the first time in a long time, he now has 271 electoral votes in either the "safe", "strong" or "likely" category for him. This is big because it means that the President could lose every single close state - North Carolina, Florida, Virginia, New Hampshire, Colorado, Ohio, Iowa and Nevada, and still win the electoral college 271 - 267.
The reason for this, of course, is the state of Ohio, which now sits in the Likely Obama category. It is virtually impossible for a Republican to win without Ohio. No Republican has ever won the Presidency without winning Ohio, going all the way back to the founding of the party in 1856. Romney HAS to win there to open up the map to possible paths to 270 for him. If he loses in Ohio, as the present polling would indicate, it's game over early on.
Romney's bad week has been the result of several things. His first foreign trip was more or less a disaster as he offended the Brits by saying they might not be prepared for the election, offended Muslims across the world by saying that Palestinian poverty was the result of an inferior culture (no, that isn't taken out of context) and his campaign advisers offended the Polish by cursing at reporters during a trip to a sacred burial site. In short, Romney looked not ready for prime-time on the world stage, and not appearing Presidential is an important defect for a challenger.
Also starting to move the polls is massive spending by the Obama campaign. Ironically, after caving into the congressional Republicans to extend the Bush tax cuts for all incomes this year, Obama is campaigning hard on NOT extending the cuts again. And it seems to be working. You may call it cheap class warfare (and I have at times), but the theme of "Romney is an out-of-touch rich guy" combined with "the rich need to pay their fair share" and "Romney is a repeat of the Bush policies" are having a meaningful impact on the race.
Finally, the economic news has been relatively good. It certainly hasn't been the V recovery that I had hoped for (and erroneously predicted) 3 years ago, but the stock market is double what it was then and we had another month of significant, although not stellar job growth.
Put it all together and Romney has some work to do after the Olympics to regain a solid footing in the race. Things are certainly not insurmountable for him at this stage - after all a 3.8% lead can evaporate in a few days if the right events happen, but he has to be careful not to let this race get too far away from him given the strength of the coffers and strategy of the Obama campaign.
Game Changing or Safe VP Pick?
Romney's inability so far to close the gap has many among the GOP faithful calling for a bolder pick for his VP. Rob Portman and Tim Pawlenty are the two heavy favorites for the nod and both represent very safe picks - unexciting but unoffensive soldiers who possess solid, but not radical, conservative credentials and would widely be seen as qualified to be President on day one.
The call is for a pick like Marco Rubio or Paul Ryan, Rubio for his youth and the energy of support for him from the Tea Party, Ryan for his conservative budget credibility, something which could be a big help for Romney, who has struggled to articulate any kind of cohesive economic and budget philosophy.
My bet is still on the safe picks and probably rightly so. I've made this point before, but it bears repeating - I cannot think of a single winning Presidential Candidate who won because of his VP pick. VP picks generally can only hurt not help, so the first principle should be to do no harm.
Pawlenty seems like the best choice of the bunch. Outside the beltway, conservative but mainstream, has run things and therefore buttresses the Romney argument of executive experience. And he is not at all gaffe-prone. But it's Romney's call, obviously, and how and what he decides will be our first big reveal into how he might govern.
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Sunday, July 22, 2012
Romney Keeps Inching Closer, Was It Really an Obama Gaffe?
2012 Presidential Update
Days Until the Election: 107
Projected Popular Vote Total: Obama +0.3% (down 0.7% from last week)
Projected Electoral Vote Total: Obama 332, Romney 206 (unchanged from last week)
For the past 3 weeks, Mitt Romney has edged ever closer to Barack Obama in national polling, but has yet to break through in swinging the electoral projection more in his favor. What Romney has done as he has pushed closer is to continually broaden the battlefield. A trend we have been seeing for some time of the Romney states being a lot more secure for Romney than the Obama states are for Obama has continued.
Romney now has more electoral votes (167) in the safe/strong category than Obama (163). And the battlegrounds are almost all now states that Obama leads in.
We'll see if the Romney trend continues in the next couple of weeks...if it does, he is almost sure to pick-up at least a few more swing states.
Somebody Helped You
Our political discourse has become so toxic that everything gets taken out of context these days. When, during the primary campaign, Mitt Romney said:
"I want individuals to have their own insurance. That means the insurance company will have an incentive to keep you healthy. It also means that if you don’t like what they do, you could fire them. I like being able to fire people who provide services to me. You know, if someone isn’t giving the good service, I want to say, I’m going to go get someone else to provide this service to."
Instantly, ads were on the air showing the piece of that quote that said "I like being able to fire people". Clearly, firing employees was not at all what Mitt was talking about, he was talking about the consumer retaining a choice of service providers related to insurance, something we would all want. But it didn't matter in the gotcha politics of today.
Similarly, President Obama said this about the relationship between our society and business start-ups this week:
"If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business. you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.
The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together. There are some things, just like fighting fires, we don’t do on our own. I mean, imagine if everybody had their own fire service. That would be a hard way to organize fighting fires."
There is frankly almost nothing in that quote that a reasonable person could disagree with. Would anyone argue that businesses benefit from the existence of roads, bridges and the internet? Do any of us who have had success not agree that that was at least in part due to teachers that cared and people that gave us our break?
We can disagree over the size and scope of government, but trying to twist what the President said into a claim that government is responsible for business start-ups is quite a pretzel.
How about we all make a deal to listen to at least a paragraph of a speech rather than pick the 5 words that sound bad when taken out of context?
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Days Until the Election: 107
Projected Popular Vote Total: Obama +0.3% (down 0.7% from last week)
Projected Electoral Vote Total: Obama 332, Romney 206 (unchanged from last week)
For the past 3 weeks, Mitt Romney has edged ever closer to Barack Obama in national polling, but has yet to break through in swinging the electoral projection more in his favor. What Romney has done as he has pushed closer is to continually broaden the battlefield. A trend we have been seeing for some time of the Romney states being a lot more secure for Romney than the Obama states are for Obama has continued.
Romney now has more electoral votes (167) in the safe/strong category than Obama (163). And the battlegrounds are almost all now states that Obama leads in.
We'll see if the Romney trend continues in the next couple of weeks...if it does, he is almost sure to pick-up at least a few more swing states.
Somebody Helped You
Our political discourse has become so toxic that everything gets taken out of context these days. When, during the primary campaign, Mitt Romney said:
"I want individuals to have their own insurance. That means the insurance company will have an incentive to keep you healthy. It also means that if you don’t like what they do, you could fire them. I like being able to fire people who provide services to me. You know, if someone isn’t giving the good service, I want to say, I’m going to go get someone else to provide this service to."
Instantly, ads were on the air showing the piece of that quote that said "I like being able to fire people". Clearly, firing employees was not at all what Mitt was talking about, he was talking about the consumer retaining a choice of service providers related to insurance, something we would all want. But it didn't matter in the gotcha politics of today.
Similarly, President Obama said this about the relationship between our society and business start-ups this week:
"If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business. you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.
The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together. There are some things, just like fighting fires, we don’t do on our own. I mean, imagine if everybody had their own fire service. That would be a hard way to organize fighting fires."
There is frankly almost nothing in that quote that a reasonable person could disagree with. Would anyone argue that businesses benefit from the existence of roads, bridges and the internet? Do any of us who have had success not agree that that was at least in part due to teachers that cared and people that gave us our break?
We can disagree over the size and scope of government, but trying to twist what the President said into a claim that government is responsible for business start-ups is quite a pretzel.
How about we all make a deal to listen to at least a paragraph of a speech rather than pick the 5 words that sound bad when taken out of context?
If you like this site, tell your friends.
Saturday, July 14, 2012
The Big 2012 Electoral Map - The Race Tightens Again, Obama Plays Dirty
2012 Presidential Update
Days Until the Election: 115
Projected Popular Vote Total: Obama +1.0% (Obama down 2.2% from 2 weeks ago)
Projected Electoral Vote Total: Obama 332, Romney 206 (unchanged from 2 weeks ago)
Mitt Romney has made inroads on President Obama's lead over the past two weeks as the economic news has largely been depressing and the President's insistence on trying to make the campaign about Romney's role at Bain Capital (more on that later) appears to be falling flat, at least to this point.
What Romney has not yet been able to do, at least on my map, is swing the electoral map in a significant way. I have yet to have a single map that has Romney leading in the electoral college and despite picking up 2.2% in the national polls over the past two weeks, Mitt has not gained a single state.
What he has accomplished is to broaden and tighten the battlefield. There are 95 electoral votes that currently sit in the "Lean Obama" category and all of them are within 2.8% in my projection. This means that if Mitt makes the kind of inroads over the next 2 weeks that he has over the past two weeks, he is likely to pick up a fair chunk of them.
If we were to assume that movements in the national polls happen evenly across the country (not necessarily true, but a reasonable proxy), we see a couple of things. First of all, at a dead even popular vote race, Romney would pick up between 35 and 48 electoral votes (he would pick up Florida and Iowa, Virginia would be a dead heat.) This would put his prospective total at between 241 and 254 electoral votes, still shy of the 270 needed to win (hence my earlier post about the structural electoral college advantage that President Obama owns), but well within striking distance. If Romney were to reverse the national polls to a 1% lead for himself, he adds Michigan and Ohio (and locks in Virginia), giving himself 288 electoral votes and putting him over the top. So, Obama's structural advantage really only matters at the margins, that is, if the national race is within 1 point.
In my eyes, given this map, Romney would be wise to limit the electoral field that he fights hard for. Pennsylvania is an appealing target with its 20 electoral votes and Wisconsin is an appealing target after the recent GOP recall victory there, but they are distractions. John McCain wasted time and resources in a Pennsylvania fight he couldn't win. Romney should realize that PA and WI matter only if the race isn't close, which is to say that they don't really matter at all. Romney should focus on shoring up his two lean states, with Missouri unlikely to be heavily contested in the end but North Carolina likely to be a battleground and focus the bulk of his resources on the Lean Obama states, especially the ones with the big prizes like Florida, Ohio, Michigan and Virginia. Just those 4 would give him 282 electoral votes and the Presidency.
The Road to the Presidency
There will be possibly as much as $2 billion spent on this Presidential campaign between now and November between the massive war chests that both candidates will amass and the variety of Super PAC's and interest groups that will run independent ads. The airways will be flooded between now and November, particularly if you happen to live in a TV market that ties to a swing state.
There will be ebbs and flows to the standing of the race and the polling based on the ads, on the news cycle, the state of the economy and gaffes that happen. But in my mind, there are 7 events that happen before election day that have the possibility of swinging the race in a meaningful fashion.
The first is when Mitt Romney announces his running mate. Sources have reported that he has narrowed his list to 4: Senator Rob Portman (OH), Representative Paul Ryan (Wisconsin), Former Governor Tim Pawlenty (Minnesota) and Governor Bobby Jindal (Louisiana). Other reports include a larger field that includes fringe contenders such as Senator Kelly Ayotte (New Hampshire), Governor Susana Martinez (New Mexico), Senator Marco Rubio (Florida) or even former Secretary of State Condeleezza Rice. Or, Romney could do what McCain did in 2008 and make a late pick that wasn't on anyone's short list. Once Romney decides who he is running with, he has to decide when to announce the pick. He could announce it as early as next week or wait until right before the convention. Red State speculated on Friday that Romney might announce a pick of Rob Portman as soon as Monday, based on a series of closed door meetings that reportedly took place between Romney and Portman over the past week.
Vice Presidential picks are a lot of fun and tend to generate buzz, but more often than not have little impact on the race. George H.W. Bush is largely considered to have made a poor pick in selecting Dan Quayle, but it didn't stop him from trouncing Michael Dukakis in 1988. Bob Dole was considered to have made a great pick in selecting Jack Kemp in 1996, but it didn't help Dole any. Even John McCain's pick of Sarah Palin in 2008 doesn't appear to have cost him the Presidency - he was behind at the time of the pick and seems highly likely to have lost when the economy collapsed regardless of who his running mate was. But the pick will be revealing as it is a critical insight into the decision-making of a would-be President.
The conventions hold a high degree of importance. The high level of success of the Democratic convention in 1992 and the apparent bitterness at the Republican convention that year helped solidify Bill Clinton's victory. The bland, boring and seemingly contrived Democratic convention in 2004 may have been the missed opportunity that cost John Kerry the White House and re-elected President George W. Bush. So the two weeks where the conventions take place back-to-back and the polling the second week in September after both are concluded will be highly instructive.
The debates are perhaps the most critical as they are not only closest to the election, but will be widely watched and talked about. Ronald Reagan obliterated Jimmy Carter in 1980 which helped moved the race from a pick 'em race to a very strong win for Reagan. Al Gore's struggle to find the right debate approach may have cost him those very few votes at the margin that would have made him victorious in 2000. The Vice-Presidential debates tend to be less important as they tend to be less-watched and more cordial affairs. But the three Presidential debates have the potential to be the three biggest game-changers in the race.
Here is the calendar of events. I'm looking forward to learning Romney's pick for Veep.
Mitt Romney Chooses His Running Mate - Sometime between now and August 26th
Republican National Convention (Tampa, Florida) - August 27th through August 30th
Democratic National Convention (Charlotte, North Carolina) - September 3rd through September 6th
First Presidential Debate (Denver, Colorado) - October 3rd
Vice-Presidential Debate (Danville, Kentucky) - October 11th
Second Presidential Debate (Hempstead, New York) - October 16th
Final Presidential Debate (Boca Raton, Florida) - October 22nd
Election Day- November 6th
Dirty, Low Down Politics
I like President Obama as a person. I like some, but not all of what he has done in office. And I had hope, after all his grandiose rhetoric from 2004 through 2008 that he might be a different kind of animal when it comes to politics. President Obama should be running on his record. And it is totally appropriate for him to strike contrast with Mitt Romney on issues of policy, be it tax policy, social policy or foreign policy. In my mind, it is even fair game to challenge Romney's credentials and certainly his record.
But the President and his team's vicious attacks on Mitt Romney over Bain Capital are wrong. I was in agreement with former President Clinton and Newark Mayor Cory Booker when they said he should stop going after private equity a few months ago. Now the Obama campaign has kicked it into high gear, going so far as to accuse Mitt Romney of committing a felony by continuing to manage Bain Capital while he was chairing the Olympic Committee. This is a serious allegation and one for which they lack the facts. Furthermore, it is a line of attack not worthy of the Presidency.
The President would be well-advised to drop the dirty politics and focus on his message and a contrast on the issues. Independents aren't going to vote for or against Romney because of his involvement with a private equity firm, which is a legitimate part of our system of capitalism. They will vote for or against him because of President Obama's job performance and the two candidates' positions on the issues. The President should talk about that and not play into the stereotype of a Chicago politician.
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Days Until the Election: 115
Projected Popular Vote Total: Obama +1.0% (Obama down 2.2% from 2 weeks ago)
Projected Electoral Vote Total: Obama 332, Romney 206 (unchanged from 2 weeks ago)
Mitt Romney has made inroads on President Obama's lead over the past two weeks as the economic news has largely been depressing and the President's insistence on trying to make the campaign about Romney's role at Bain Capital (more on that later) appears to be falling flat, at least to this point.
What Romney has not yet been able to do, at least on my map, is swing the electoral map in a significant way. I have yet to have a single map that has Romney leading in the electoral college and despite picking up 2.2% in the national polls over the past two weeks, Mitt has not gained a single state.
What he has accomplished is to broaden and tighten the battlefield. There are 95 electoral votes that currently sit in the "Lean Obama" category and all of them are within 2.8% in my projection. This means that if Mitt makes the kind of inroads over the next 2 weeks that he has over the past two weeks, he is likely to pick up a fair chunk of them.
If we were to assume that movements in the national polls happen evenly across the country (not necessarily true, but a reasonable proxy), we see a couple of things. First of all, at a dead even popular vote race, Romney would pick up between 35 and 48 electoral votes (he would pick up Florida and Iowa, Virginia would be a dead heat.) This would put his prospective total at between 241 and 254 electoral votes, still shy of the 270 needed to win (hence my earlier post about the structural electoral college advantage that President Obama owns), but well within striking distance. If Romney were to reverse the national polls to a 1% lead for himself, he adds Michigan and Ohio (and locks in Virginia), giving himself 288 electoral votes and putting him over the top. So, Obama's structural advantage really only matters at the margins, that is, if the national race is within 1 point.
In my eyes, given this map, Romney would be wise to limit the electoral field that he fights hard for. Pennsylvania is an appealing target with its 20 electoral votes and Wisconsin is an appealing target after the recent GOP recall victory there, but they are distractions. John McCain wasted time and resources in a Pennsylvania fight he couldn't win. Romney should realize that PA and WI matter only if the race isn't close, which is to say that they don't really matter at all. Romney should focus on shoring up his two lean states, with Missouri unlikely to be heavily contested in the end but North Carolina likely to be a battleground and focus the bulk of his resources on the Lean Obama states, especially the ones with the big prizes like Florida, Ohio, Michigan and Virginia. Just those 4 would give him 282 electoral votes and the Presidency.
The Road to the Presidency
There will be possibly as much as $2 billion spent on this Presidential campaign between now and November between the massive war chests that both candidates will amass and the variety of Super PAC's and interest groups that will run independent ads. The airways will be flooded between now and November, particularly if you happen to live in a TV market that ties to a swing state.
There will be ebbs and flows to the standing of the race and the polling based on the ads, on the news cycle, the state of the economy and gaffes that happen. But in my mind, there are 7 events that happen before election day that have the possibility of swinging the race in a meaningful fashion.
The first is when Mitt Romney announces his running mate. Sources have reported that he has narrowed his list to 4: Senator Rob Portman (OH), Representative Paul Ryan (Wisconsin), Former Governor Tim Pawlenty (Minnesota) and Governor Bobby Jindal (Louisiana). Other reports include a larger field that includes fringe contenders such as Senator Kelly Ayotte (New Hampshire), Governor Susana Martinez (New Mexico), Senator Marco Rubio (Florida) or even former Secretary of State Condeleezza Rice. Or, Romney could do what McCain did in 2008 and make a late pick that wasn't on anyone's short list. Once Romney decides who he is running with, he has to decide when to announce the pick. He could announce it as early as next week or wait until right before the convention. Red State speculated on Friday that Romney might announce a pick of Rob Portman as soon as Monday, based on a series of closed door meetings that reportedly took place between Romney and Portman over the past week.
Vice Presidential picks are a lot of fun and tend to generate buzz, but more often than not have little impact on the race. George H.W. Bush is largely considered to have made a poor pick in selecting Dan Quayle, but it didn't stop him from trouncing Michael Dukakis in 1988. Bob Dole was considered to have made a great pick in selecting Jack Kemp in 1996, but it didn't help Dole any. Even John McCain's pick of Sarah Palin in 2008 doesn't appear to have cost him the Presidency - he was behind at the time of the pick and seems highly likely to have lost when the economy collapsed regardless of who his running mate was. But the pick will be revealing as it is a critical insight into the decision-making of a would-be President.
The conventions hold a high degree of importance. The high level of success of the Democratic convention in 1992 and the apparent bitterness at the Republican convention that year helped solidify Bill Clinton's victory. The bland, boring and seemingly contrived Democratic convention in 2004 may have been the missed opportunity that cost John Kerry the White House and re-elected President George W. Bush. So the two weeks where the conventions take place back-to-back and the polling the second week in September after both are concluded will be highly instructive.
The debates are perhaps the most critical as they are not only closest to the election, but will be widely watched and talked about. Ronald Reagan obliterated Jimmy Carter in 1980 which helped moved the race from a pick 'em race to a very strong win for Reagan. Al Gore's struggle to find the right debate approach may have cost him those very few votes at the margin that would have made him victorious in 2000. The Vice-Presidential debates tend to be less important as they tend to be less-watched and more cordial affairs. But the three Presidential debates have the potential to be the three biggest game-changers in the race.
Here is the calendar of events. I'm looking forward to learning Romney's pick for Veep.
Mitt Romney Chooses His Running Mate - Sometime between now and August 26th
Republican National Convention (Tampa, Florida) - August 27th through August 30th
Democratic National Convention (Charlotte, North Carolina) - September 3rd through September 6th
First Presidential Debate (Denver, Colorado) - October 3rd
Vice-Presidential Debate (Danville, Kentucky) - October 11th
Second Presidential Debate (Hempstead, New York) - October 16th
Final Presidential Debate (Boca Raton, Florida) - October 22nd
Election Day- November 6th
Dirty, Low Down Politics
I like President Obama as a person. I like some, but not all of what he has done in office. And I had hope, after all his grandiose rhetoric from 2004 through 2008 that he might be a different kind of animal when it comes to politics. President Obama should be running on his record. And it is totally appropriate for him to strike contrast with Mitt Romney on issues of policy, be it tax policy, social policy or foreign policy. In my mind, it is even fair game to challenge Romney's credentials and certainly his record.
But the President and his team's vicious attacks on Mitt Romney over Bain Capital are wrong. I was in agreement with former President Clinton and Newark Mayor Cory Booker when they said he should stop going after private equity a few months ago. Now the Obama campaign has kicked it into high gear, going so far as to accuse Mitt Romney of committing a felony by continuing to manage Bain Capital while he was chairing the Olympic Committee. This is a serious allegation and one for which they lack the facts. Furthermore, it is a line of attack not worthy of the Presidency.
The President would be well-advised to drop the dirty politics and focus on his message and a contrast on the issues. Independents aren't going to vote for or against Romney because of his involvement with a private equity firm, which is a legitimate part of our system of capitalism. They will vote for or against him because of President Obama's job performance and the two candidates' positions on the issues. The President should talk about that and not play into the stereotype of a Chicago politician.
If you like this site, tell your friends.
Saturday, June 30, 2012
The Latest 2012 Big Map, The Supreme Era of John Roberts
2012 Presidential Update
Days Until the Election: 129
Projected Popular Vote Total: Obama +3.2% (Obama down 0.3% from last week)
Projected Electoral Vote Total: Obama 332, Romney 206 (Obama +18 from last week)
The national polling was fairly flat last week, but the geographic dynamics shifted slightly but significantly from an electoral standpoint.
Ohio, was has switched back and forth over the past month, switches back to President Obama, as he establishes a narrow lead there. New England, meanwhile, moves a little closer, with New Hampshire now only a Lean Obama state and Massachusetts shifting down one notch (although not seriously predicted to be competitive.)
Virtually all of the polling included in this update was conducted prior to the Supreme Court's ruling on the Affordable Care Act, which the effect of (whatever that may be) should show up in earnest next week.
John Roberts, Meet Warren Burger
The Supreme Court decision to uphold almost all of the Affordable Care Act, most notably the so-called individual mandate by a 5-4 vote was a minor surprise. Most observers, myself included, expected the most likely outcome to be a 5-4 vote to strike the mandate, with the outcome that actually happened being the second most likely scenario.
What virtually all of us anticipated was the liberal wing of the court, including Ginsburg, Sotomayor, Kagan and Breyer on one side, with the conservative wing of Thomas, Scalia, Alito and Roberts on the other side and the fifth and deciding vote being cost by moderate Reagan appointee Anthony Kennedy.
But something happened on the way to a Supreme Court ruling. Kennedy sided with the conservatives, as was narrowly expected. But Chief Justice John Roberts broke ranks to uphold the individual mandate.
This tells us a few things. First of all, Roberts has a deep-seated belief in the separation of powers. There is virtually no question that John Roberts considers the ACA to be poor legislation. Prior to his time on the bench, Roberts was a member of the steering committee of the right-wing Federalist Society, a libertarian/conservative think tank who are certainly no fans of the ACA. Roberts worked for the Bush campaign in 2000 in the Florida Recount. He is a political conservative - no question.
But Roberts clearly believes that a Supreme Court ruling striking down the health care law would be an undue exercise of judicial power - substituting the Supreme Court's judgement for the judgement of elected officials.
In fact, Roberts took great pains to make clear in his opinion that this was not a judgement in favor of the policies in the ACA, stating, "we do not consider whether the act embodies sound policies. That judgement is entrusted to the nation's elected leaders."
In my opinion, Roberts got it exactly right on the constitutional question, ruling that the government does not have the authority to require people to purchase health insurance but does have the power to tax those who do not. Roberts wrote:
"The federal government does not have the power to force people to buy health insurance. The federal government does have the power to impose a tax on those without health insurance...It is reasonable to construe what Congress has done as increasing taxes on those that have a certain amount of income, but chose to go without health insurance."
There were two principal arguments for the constitutional authority of the law. The first, and actually primary argument was under the commerce clause of the constitution, the federal government has the right to "regulate commerce among the several states". This has been construed by the court in the past as a broad power, with the federal government having been seen to have a right to not only regulate trade that moves across state borders, but trade within the borders of states that impacts the marketplace of other states - for instance, regulate the growing of corn in Iowa even if that corn is being sold within Iowa because it impacts national prices.
What has never been tested before is the authority of the federal government to require people to DO things versus NOT DO them. Requiring an affirmative purchase from an individual by requiring them to purchase something would be an expansion of historical power, one that the 4 liberal justices were comfortable with, but one that the other 5 more conservative justices were not.
In other words, the court ruled that it would be unconstitutional to, for instance, throw people in jail if they didn't purchase health insurance. This seems to me to be a very prudent interpretation of the constitution as a ruling on the commerce clause that allowed the government to require people to do things would open the door to virtually unlimited power over individual actions by the federal government.
The taxation question is a different question as the governments authority on taxation is considerably more broad. The clause in the constitution (Article I, Section VIII) states:
"The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States"
Note that the original text also went on to restrict taxes to only allow that the taxes be uniform (i.e. proportional to population or trade) but that this restriction was removed with the ratification of the 16th Amendment in 1913.
There are essentially no restrictions on the right of Congress to pass any tax it sees fit, so if you construe the financial fee charged in the ACA to those without individuals as a tax, which both Roberts and I see as a reasonable interpretation.
Some will argue that the issue is the same as with the commerce clause in that this is a tax on inactivity versus a tax on activity (say an income tax or a consumption tax), or, more bluntly that you are taxing people for NOT having health insurance versus taxing someone for purchasing something or earning income.
This argument falls flat to me for two reasons:
1. It is a distinction without a difference - Congress creates tax credits all the time to provide incentives for behavior - tax deductions for charitable contributions, tax credits for education and solar panels, tax credits for oil exploration and many, many others. If Congress had worded the health care bill as a general tax increase with a tax credit for those who purchase health insurance, the net effect would have been the same - an increase in tax costs for those who don't purchase health insurance and a net neutral tax position for all others.
2. Even if you construe this as a new and different tax on inactivity, there is no reasonable interpretation that I can make of the constitutional authority above that prohibits taxes on inactivity. The taxing power of Congress is fairly absolute.
Roberts, in breaking with the conservative wing on this issue, follows a long tradition of judicial independence. Few today remember Chief Justice Warren Burger. Burger was appointed to the court by Richard Nixon in 1969, replacing the liberal Earl Warren, who had presided over many liberal decisions with the most famous being Brown v. Board of Education (which ruled racial segregation in public schools illegal) as part of what was, at the time, perceived as a conservative effort to stack the court. Playing far from the script, Burger, once on the court, presided over several surprisingly liberal decisions, the most notable being Roe vs. Wade in 1973, which he wrote himself. Burger also wrote the 9-0 ruling that the Nixon White House had to turn over crucial information about the Watergate break-in and wrote the 9-0 decision in a case that required expansive busing of school children in Charlotte to better integrate public schools. Burger, in other words, became a reliable liberal on the court.
Similarly, David Souter, a George Herbert-Walker Bush nominee, was seen as part of a new conservative majority when he was appointed to the court in 1990. Far from following script, Souter became a reliable liberal vote on the court.
This is exactly why the judiciary is independent. And the system works, largely, whether you agree with you agree with all the courts rulings (and few do - most liberals detest the Citizens United ruling that allows essentially unlimited corporate spending in elections and most conservatives will detest the ACA ruling.)
In my opinion, Roberts did exactly what a Supreme Court Chief Justice should do. He exercised independent judgement on a difficult constitutional question. And in my opinion, he also got it exactly right.
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Days Until the Election: 129
Projected Popular Vote Total: Obama +3.2% (Obama down 0.3% from last week)
Projected Electoral Vote Total: Obama 332, Romney 206 (Obama +18 from last week)
The national polling was fairly flat last week, but the geographic dynamics shifted slightly but significantly from an electoral standpoint.
Ohio, was has switched back and forth over the past month, switches back to President Obama, as he establishes a narrow lead there. New England, meanwhile, moves a little closer, with New Hampshire now only a Lean Obama state and Massachusetts shifting down one notch (although not seriously predicted to be competitive.)
Virtually all of the polling included in this update was conducted prior to the Supreme Court's ruling on the Affordable Care Act, which the effect of (whatever that may be) should show up in earnest next week.
John Roberts, Meet Warren Burger
The Supreme Court decision to uphold almost all of the Affordable Care Act, most notably the so-called individual mandate by a 5-4 vote was a minor surprise. Most observers, myself included, expected the most likely outcome to be a 5-4 vote to strike the mandate, with the outcome that actually happened being the second most likely scenario.
What virtually all of us anticipated was the liberal wing of the court, including Ginsburg, Sotomayor, Kagan and Breyer on one side, with the conservative wing of Thomas, Scalia, Alito and Roberts on the other side and the fifth and deciding vote being cost by moderate Reagan appointee Anthony Kennedy.
But something happened on the way to a Supreme Court ruling. Kennedy sided with the conservatives, as was narrowly expected. But Chief Justice John Roberts broke ranks to uphold the individual mandate.
This tells us a few things. First of all, Roberts has a deep-seated belief in the separation of powers. There is virtually no question that John Roberts considers the ACA to be poor legislation. Prior to his time on the bench, Roberts was a member of the steering committee of the right-wing Federalist Society, a libertarian/conservative think tank who are certainly no fans of the ACA. Roberts worked for the Bush campaign in 2000 in the Florida Recount. He is a political conservative - no question.
But Roberts clearly believes that a Supreme Court ruling striking down the health care law would be an undue exercise of judicial power - substituting the Supreme Court's judgement for the judgement of elected officials.
In fact, Roberts took great pains to make clear in his opinion that this was not a judgement in favor of the policies in the ACA, stating, "we do not consider whether the act embodies sound policies. That judgement is entrusted to the nation's elected leaders."
In my opinion, Roberts got it exactly right on the constitutional question, ruling that the government does not have the authority to require people to purchase health insurance but does have the power to tax those who do not. Roberts wrote:
"The federal government does not have the power to force people to buy health insurance. The federal government does have the power to impose a tax on those without health insurance...It is reasonable to construe what Congress has done as increasing taxes on those that have a certain amount of income, but chose to go without health insurance."
There were two principal arguments for the constitutional authority of the law. The first, and actually primary argument was under the commerce clause of the constitution, the federal government has the right to "regulate commerce among the several states". This has been construed by the court in the past as a broad power, with the federal government having been seen to have a right to not only regulate trade that moves across state borders, but trade within the borders of states that impacts the marketplace of other states - for instance, regulate the growing of corn in Iowa even if that corn is being sold within Iowa because it impacts national prices.
What has never been tested before is the authority of the federal government to require people to DO things versus NOT DO them. Requiring an affirmative purchase from an individual by requiring them to purchase something would be an expansion of historical power, one that the 4 liberal justices were comfortable with, but one that the other 5 more conservative justices were not.
In other words, the court ruled that it would be unconstitutional to, for instance, throw people in jail if they didn't purchase health insurance. This seems to me to be a very prudent interpretation of the constitution as a ruling on the commerce clause that allowed the government to require people to do things would open the door to virtually unlimited power over individual actions by the federal government.
The taxation question is a different question as the governments authority on taxation is considerably more broad. The clause in the constitution (Article I, Section VIII) states:
"The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States"
Note that the original text also went on to restrict taxes to only allow that the taxes be uniform (i.e. proportional to population or trade) but that this restriction was removed with the ratification of the 16th Amendment in 1913.
There are essentially no restrictions on the right of Congress to pass any tax it sees fit, so if you construe the financial fee charged in the ACA to those without individuals as a tax, which both Roberts and I see as a reasonable interpretation.
Some will argue that the issue is the same as with the commerce clause in that this is a tax on inactivity versus a tax on activity (say an income tax or a consumption tax), or, more bluntly that you are taxing people for NOT having health insurance versus taxing someone for purchasing something or earning income.
This argument falls flat to me for two reasons:
1. It is a distinction without a difference - Congress creates tax credits all the time to provide incentives for behavior - tax deductions for charitable contributions, tax credits for education and solar panels, tax credits for oil exploration and many, many others. If Congress had worded the health care bill as a general tax increase with a tax credit for those who purchase health insurance, the net effect would have been the same - an increase in tax costs for those who don't purchase health insurance and a net neutral tax position for all others.
2. Even if you construe this as a new and different tax on inactivity, there is no reasonable interpretation that I can make of the constitutional authority above that prohibits taxes on inactivity. The taxing power of Congress is fairly absolute.
Roberts, in breaking with the conservative wing on this issue, follows a long tradition of judicial independence. Few today remember Chief Justice Warren Burger. Burger was appointed to the court by Richard Nixon in 1969, replacing the liberal Earl Warren, who had presided over many liberal decisions with the most famous being Brown v. Board of Education (which ruled racial segregation in public schools illegal) as part of what was, at the time, perceived as a conservative effort to stack the court. Playing far from the script, Burger, once on the court, presided over several surprisingly liberal decisions, the most notable being Roe vs. Wade in 1973, which he wrote himself. Burger also wrote the 9-0 ruling that the Nixon White House had to turn over crucial information about the Watergate break-in and wrote the 9-0 decision in a case that required expansive busing of school children in Charlotte to better integrate public schools. Burger, in other words, became a reliable liberal on the court.
Similarly, David Souter, a George Herbert-Walker Bush nominee, was seen as part of a new conservative majority when he was appointed to the court in 1990. Far from following script, Souter became a reliable liberal vote on the court.
This is exactly why the judiciary is independent. And the system works, largely, whether you agree with you agree with all the courts rulings (and few do - most liberals detest the Citizens United ruling that allows essentially unlimited corporate spending in elections and most conservatives will detest the ACA ruling.)
In my opinion, Roberts did exactly what a Supreme Court Chief Justice should do. He exercised independent judgement on a difficult constitutional question. And in my opinion, he also got it exactly right.
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Sunday, June 24, 2012
The Big 2012 Electoral Map - Good Week for Obama, The Future of Obamacare, Commerce and Justice Departments in Disarray
Electoral Map Update
Days Until the Election: 135
Projected Popular Vote Total: Obama +3.5%
Projected Electoral Vote Total: Obama 314, Romney 224
Mitt Romney's closing of the gap against President Obama sure didn't last long. Obama gained over two and a half points in the national polls (more on that and the outlier Bloomberg Poll later) and appears to now hold a small lead in Florida, a state he had been trailing Romney in marginally for some time.
The two bright spots for Romney are that he held onto a razor-thin lead in Ohio, a must win state, to be sure, and moved far closer in Michigan, which moves into the "lean" category for the first time. Winning Michigan would be game-changing for Romney, as it takes him out of the narrow electoral box that I have been describing for several weeks. Flipping just Michigan and Florida from the current electoral map would yield a 269-269 electoral college split, more than likely enough for Romney to win the Presidency, given the Republican house. Of course, it would also make the couple of electors that I have not been closely tracking in Nebraska and Maine, the two states that are not winner-take-all, crucial. If a winner-take-all scenario yields a 269-269 split, Obama need only win one congressional district in Nebraska (as he did in 2008) and Romney need only win one of the two districts in Maine (which certainly seems possible, given how much more competitive Maine is than in 2008.) Deciding a Presidency on this basis would probably be extremely unsatisfying, but the rules are what they are.
National polling was thrown a big curve ball this week when the Bloomberg Presidential poll, which is a fairly respected non-partisan national poll, showed President Obama with a 13 point lead over Mitt Romney. I've looked at the polling report and there is nothing obviously wrong with the sample selection or methodology, which is in line with other national polls.
So what are we to make of this poll? Clearly I don't think President Obama has a 13 point lead, as every other national poll shows a much closer race, but this is a good lesson in poll sampling error and statistical outliers.
The way polling works, fundamentally, is by sampling a small portion of the population and using that to project the larger national picture. Polling is a statistical science, by which taking a sample, if the sample size is large enough relative to the group that you are attempting to sample, you can provide an accurate picture most of the time.
There are two statistical elements which describe the possible variability of a poll - they are expressed statistically as the confidence interval level and the confidence interval range. The confidence interval range is typically referred to in the media as the "Margin of Error". This isn't strictly correct, since it ignores the confidence interval level, which is typically not published, but usually 95%. National media also tends to ignore the fact that the confidence interval runs both ways...in other words if it is 3%, then you would have to subtract 3% from one candidate AND add 3% to the other candidate to find the outer range of the confidence interval, or a 6% swing.
In the case of the Bloomberg Poll, the confidence interval was a 95% confidence interval and the confidence interval range was +/- 3.5%.
The media would simply report "the poll had a margin of error of 3.5%".
A statistician would say "We have 95% confidence that each candidate's actual total is within 3.5% of the reported total in the poll".
So, the Bloomberg Poll could be the 1 time in 20 that the poll is just flat wrong. Or it could be that the 13 point lead that it is reporting is really a 6 point lead and the poll, is, in fact, withing the "margin of error".
Regardless, other national polls from the week, show the following:
Pew Research - Obama +4%
Assocaited Press - Obama +3%
Gallup - Even
Rasmussen - Romney +5%
So, clearly the Bloomberg poll is a high outlier for Obama and the Rasmussen poll is a high outlier for Romney, with the other three showing somewhere between a 0 to 4% lead for the President. Aggregating all the poll results gives us a 3.5% lead for the President, so the Bloomberg poll does have an impact on the numbers, but not an outsized one.
Monday Is the Day (Probably) for SCOTUS and Obamacare
Monday is the last scheduled day for the Supreme Court to issue rulings and is therefore the probable date for it to issue its ruling on Obamacare. Now, the Supremes have utter discretion to extend the date if they need more time to finish the ruling, but the odds are still in favor that we will see a ruling early this week.
So what is likely to happen? The Supreme Court appears to be the last institution that is highly effective at preventing leaks, so I don't have any intelligence that isn't public knowledge, but, like everyone else, I can speculate based on the questioning during the arguing of the case.
There appears to me to be a clear 5-4 majority that favors striking down the individual mandate.
George W. Bush nominees John Roberts and Samuel Alito plus George H.W. Bush nominee Clarence Thomas will join Reagan nominees Antonin Scalia and Anthony Kennedy to form the 5 vote majority, opposed by Clinton nominees Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Steve Breyer and Obama nominees Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor. I mention the nominating Presidents to make one simple point - this appears poised to be a straight party-line vote, rather than a debate of complex legal theories.
Kennedy was thought to be the swing vote, but made it fairly obvious by his questioning in the case that he is highly skeptical of the mandate.
What is very much in debt is whether striking down the mandate (assuming the court does) will lead it to invalidate the entire law or whether it will allow the law to stand without the mandate. I don't really know, but I believe it is likely, also by a 5-4 vote, with Kennedy swinging the deciding vote, that it will rule that the rest of the law can stand. To strike down the rest, in spite of a clear notice in the law of severability would be a massive overreach of power by the Supremes, and the fact that 4 "strict constructionist conservatives" appeared poised to do it largely invalidates their complaints of judicial activism. There is certainly some chance that the court will rule 5-4 the other way, with Kennedy not swinging his vote, but I think it is more likely than not that the rest of the law will stay intact.
Hit and Runs and Fast and Furious
The now very well publicized Fast and Furious scandal at the Justice Department reached a new level of rancor this week, with President Obama asserting executive privilege over Justice Department memorandum related to the ill-fated program.
This is now a full-fledged scandal, with Holder for months denying the program, which sold guns to Mexican cartels, then subsequently lost track of the guns, which were used to slaughter Mexican civilians and a U.S. agent, then admitted it existed and has consistently dodged congressional inquiry.
Now, Republicans love to witch-hunt scandal in an otherwise clean Obama administration. But they have good cause in this case. Obama should stop letting Holder hide behind him, live up to his stated commitment of public transparency and release the information. We have a right to know what is in those documents. And Holder should resign for his role running the department. Loyalty to Holder should not trump national interest.
In addition to the well-known Justice Department troubles, Obama continues to struggle with the Commerce Department. The Commerce Department has plagued the President since before he took office. It took three tries to get a suitable nominee to head the department, with Obama's first pick of Tom Daschle withdrawn due to a tax scandal, his second nominee, Republican Judd Gregg, withdrawn after Gregg decided he didn't want the job. Obama' third nominee, Gary Locke, actually made it to running the department, but lasted scarcely two years before talking. Obama's fourth nominee and second secretary, John Bryson, took office last October, but resigned under strange and questionable circumstances last week after being arrested for a hit and run and blaming the situation on a seizure. With Bryson gone, we may never fully understand what happened during Bryson's traffic accident, but Obama has a hole in his cabinet again. Don't expect any nominee to get approved before the election.
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Days Until the Election: 135
Projected Popular Vote Total: Obama +3.5%
Projected Electoral Vote Total: Obama 314, Romney 224
Mitt Romney's closing of the gap against President Obama sure didn't last long. Obama gained over two and a half points in the national polls (more on that and the outlier Bloomberg Poll later) and appears to now hold a small lead in Florida, a state he had been trailing Romney in marginally for some time.
The two bright spots for Romney are that he held onto a razor-thin lead in Ohio, a must win state, to be sure, and moved far closer in Michigan, which moves into the "lean" category for the first time. Winning Michigan would be game-changing for Romney, as it takes him out of the narrow electoral box that I have been describing for several weeks. Flipping just Michigan and Florida from the current electoral map would yield a 269-269 electoral college split, more than likely enough for Romney to win the Presidency, given the Republican house. Of course, it would also make the couple of electors that I have not been closely tracking in Nebraska and Maine, the two states that are not winner-take-all, crucial. If a winner-take-all scenario yields a 269-269 split, Obama need only win one congressional district in Nebraska (as he did in 2008) and Romney need only win one of the two districts in Maine (which certainly seems possible, given how much more competitive Maine is than in 2008.) Deciding a Presidency on this basis would probably be extremely unsatisfying, but the rules are what they are.
National polling was thrown a big curve ball this week when the Bloomberg Presidential poll, which is a fairly respected non-partisan national poll, showed President Obama with a 13 point lead over Mitt Romney. I've looked at the polling report and there is nothing obviously wrong with the sample selection or methodology, which is in line with other national polls.
So what are we to make of this poll? Clearly I don't think President Obama has a 13 point lead, as every other national poll shows a much closer race, but this is a good lesson in poll sampling error and statistical outliers.
The way polling works, fundamentally, is by sampling a small portion of the population and using that to project the larger national picture. Polling is a statistical science, by which taking a sample, if the sample size is large enough relative to the group that you are attempting to sample, you can provide an accurate picture most of the time.
There are two statistical elements which describe the possible variability of a poll - they are expressed statistically as the confidence interval level and the confidence interval range. The confidence interval range is typically referred to in the media as the "Margin of Error". This isn't strictly correct, since it ignores the confidence interval level, which is typically not published, but usually 95%. National media also tends to ignore the fact that the confidence interval runs both ways...in other words if it is 3%, then you would have to subtract 3% from one candidate AND add 3% to the other candidate to find the outer range of the confidence interval, or a 6% swing.
In the case of the Bloomberg Poll, the confidence interval was a 95% confidence interval and the confidence interval range was +/- 3.5%.
The media would simply report "the poll had a margin of error of 3.5%".
A statistician would say "We have 95% confidence that each candidate's actual total is within 3.5% of the reported total in the poll".
So, the Bloomberg Poll could be the 1 time in 20 that the poll is just flat wrong. Or it could be that the 13 point lead that it is reporting is really a 6 point lead and the poll, is, in fact, withing the "margin of error".
Regardless, other national polls from the week, show the following:
Pew Research - Obama +4%
Assocaited Press - Obama +3%
Gallup - Even
Rasmussen - Romney +5%
So, clearly the Bloomberg poll is a high outlier for Obama and the Rasmussen poll is a high outlier for Romney, with the other three showing somewhere between a 0 to 4% lead for the President. Aggregating all the poll results gives us a 3.5% lead for the President, so the Bloomberg poll does have an impact on the numbers, but not an outsized one.
Monday Is the Day (Probably) for SCOTUS and Obamacare
Monday is the last scheduled day for the Supreme Court to issue rulings and is therefore the probable date for it to issue its ruling on Obamacare. Now, the Supremes have utter discretion to extend the date if they need more time to finish the ruling, but the odds are still in favor that we will see a ruling early this week.
So what is likely to happen? The Supreme Court appears to be the last institution that is highly effective at preventing leaks, so I don't have any intelligence that isn't public knowledge, but, like everyone else, I can speculate based on the questioning during the arguing of the case.
There appears to me to be a clear 5-4 majority that favors striking down the individual mandate.
George W. Bush nominees John Roberts and Samuel Alito plus George H.W. Bush nominee Clarence Thomas will join Reagan nominees Antonin Scalia and Anthony Kennedy to form the 5 vote majority, opposed by Clinton nominees Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Steve Breyer and Obama nominees Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor. I mention the nominating Presidents to make one simple point - this appears poised to be a straight party-line vote, rather than a debate of complex legal theories.
Kennedy was thought to be the swing vote, but made it fairly obvious by his questioning in the case that he is highly skeptical of the mandate.
What is very much in debt is whether striking down the mandate (assuming the court does) will lead it to invalidate the entire law or whether it will allow the law to stand without the mandate. I don't really know, but I believe it is likely, also by a 5-4 vote, with Kennedy swinging the deciding vote, that it will rule that the rest of the law can stand. To strike down the rest, in spite of a clear notice in the law of severability would be a massive overreach of power by the Supremes, and the fact that 4 "strict constructionist conservatives" appeared poised to do it largely invalidates their complaints of judicial activism. There is certainly some chance that the court will rule 5-4 the other way, with Kennedy not swinging his vote, but I think it is more likely than not that the rest of the law will stay intact.
Hit and Runs and Fast and Furious
The now very well publicized Fast and Furious scandal at the Justice Department reached a new level of rancor this week, with President Obama asserting executive privilege over Justice Department memorandum related to the ill-fated program.
This is now a full-fledged scandal, with Holder for months denying the program, which sold guns to Mexican cartels, then subsequently lost track of the guns, which were used to slaughter Mexican civilians and a U.S. agent, then admitted it existed and has consistently dodged congressional inquiry.
Now, Republicans love to witch-hunt scandal in an otherwise clean Obama administration. But they have good cause in this case. Obama should stop letting Holder hide behind him, live up to his stated commitment of public transparency and release the information. We have a right to know what is in those documents. And Holder should resign for his role running the department. Loyalty to Holder should not trump national interest.
In addition to the well-known Justice Department troubles, Obama continues to struggle with the Commerce Department. The Commerce Department has plagued the President since before he took office. It took three tries to get a suitable nominee to head the department, with Obama's first pick of Tom Daschle withdrawn due to a tax scandal, his second nominee, Republican Judd Gregg, withdrawn after Gregg decided he didn't want the job. Obama' third nominee, Gary Locke, actually made it to running the department, but lasted scarcely two years before talking. Obama's fourth nominee and second secretary, John Bryson, took office last October, but resigned under strange and questionable circumstances last week after being arrested for a hit and run and blaming the situation on a seizure. With Bryson gone, we may never fully understand what happened during Bryson's traffic accident, but Obama has a hole in his cabinet again. Don't expect any nominee to get approved before the election.
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Saturday, June 9, 2012
A Tightening Race Thanks to Bad Circumstances and Bad Strategy, The All Out Battle for Congress
Days Until the Election: 150
Projected Popular Vote Total: Obama +0.9%
Projected Electoral Vote Total: Obama 303-Romney 235
Projected Senate Total: Republican 50, Democratic 48, Independents 2
Projected House Total: Republican 260, Democratic 175
The Top of the Ticket
Lousy employment news isn't helping President Obama, but neither is a campaign that is off-message and a Presidency that seems out of ideas on the economy. Infighting among Democrats, including Newark Mayor Cory Booker and former President Bill Clinton over private equity has been a complete distraction, eliminating any air space for him to fight presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney. With the stimulus money spent, monetary policy about as loose as it can possibly be (between near zero interest rates and quantitative easing) and both payroll and income tax cuts extended through the end of this year, it's not clear at all where the President goes from here on the economy.
While the electoral count doesn't look any different than my last posting, the national polls have tightened significantly and the close states make a Romney win look more viable than it did just a few weeks ago.
Ratings shifts from my last map:
Colorado - from Likely Obama to Lean Obama
Wisconsin - from Lean Obama to Likely Obama
Michigan - from Strong Obama to Likely Obama
Maine - from Strong Obama to Likely Obama
Mitt Romney's road to the White House is fairly simple now. Win the states he is presently leading (i.e. hold on to Missouri, North Carolina and Florida) and win the Lean Obama states. Ohio, Colorado, Iowa and Virginia have a combined 46 electoral votes. If Romney takes that path, it will give him 281, more than enough to win. He can afford to give up either Iowa or Colorado, but Ohio and Virginia are must-haves, just as they have been all race.
Do I hear a call to Rob Portman for the Veep spot?
The Senate
The Democratic Party has a near-impossible task of retaining the Senate in 2012, with all of the unlikely upsets they pulled off in the sweep of 2006 up for re-election and a slim majority. They are hanging on by a thread at the moment, with just enough seats to hold the majority, assuming Bernie Sanders (Independent/Socialist - Vermont) continues to caucus with the Democrats and that likely Maine winner Angus King does as well (as he is expected to), plus the Democratic ticket wins at the top. But they have a lot of seats at risk.
Excluding the seats up for election this time, there are 37 Republicans and 30 Democrats who will return to Washington next year.
Of the 33 races up for grabs, here are my latest projections:
Safe or Strong Democratic (13)
California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Washington, West Virginia
Safe or Strong Independent (2)
Maine, Vermont
Likely Democratic (1)
Ohio
Lean Democratic (4)
Florida, New Mexico, North Dakota, Virginia
Lean Republican (6)
Indiana, Massachusetts, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, Wisconsin
Likely Republican (2)
Arizona, Nebraska
Safe or Strong Republican (5)
Mississippi, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Wyoming
So, in the range of likely scenarios, Republicans could up their total to as many as 54 seats or, if the national tide somehow turns, fall back to 42. Clearly there is a lot yet to be decided in the Senate.
The House
Republicans have a massive structural advantage in this year's House elections thanks to redistricting. Republican victories in state houses and gubernatorial races over the past few years have given them the right to draw a lot of congressional districts to their advantage. Plus, the continued practice of drawing black-majority districts (a product of the Voting Rights Act) naturally concentrates heavily Democratic black voters in a smaller number of House districts, leading to a few solidly Democratic districts in urban areas and a number of modestly Republican seats in the suburbs and exurbs.
How big is the GOP structural advantage? Looking at the Cook Partisan Voting Index, which measures how much more Republican or Democratic a district is than the nation as a whole, with the new house districts we see:
Solidly Democratic Districts (RPI +10 Democratic or higher) = 111
Likely Democratic Districts (RPI of 5 to 9) = 44
Lean Democratic Districts (RPI of 1 to 4) = 37
Toss-Up Districts (RPI = 0) = 9
Lean Republican Districts (RPI of 1 to 4) = 45
Likely Republican Districts (RPI of 5 to 9) = 78
Solidly Republican Districts (RPI +10 Republican or higher) = 111
What this means is that if the Congressional vote split exactly 50/50, the GOP would win between 234 and 243 seats, a solid majority in either case. For the Democrats to get to the magic number of 218, they would need to win nationally by about 2%.
And at the moment, they trail in the generic ballot by 2%, leading to a very solid GOP majority.
A lot could change in this projection as a few point swing can have big effects on the House total. But it sure looks good for the GOP in the House at this stage of the game.
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Projected Popular Vote Total: Obama +0.9%
Projected Electoral Vote Total: Obama 303-Romney 235
Projected Senate Total: Republican 50, Democratic 48, Independents 2
Projected House Total: Republican 260, Democratic 175
The Top of the Ticket
Lousy employment news isn't helping President Obama, but neither is a campaign that is off-message and a Presidency that seems out of ideas on the economy. Infighting among Democrats, including Newark Mayor Cory Booker and former President Bill Clinton over private equity has been a complete distraction, eliminating any air space for him to fight presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney. With the stimulus money spent, monetary policy about as loose as it can possibly be (between near zero interest rates and quantitative easing) and both payroll and income tax cuts extended through the end of this year, it's not clear at all where the President goes from here on the economy.
While the electoral count doesn't look any different than my last posting, the national polls have tightened significantly and the close states make a Romney win look more viable than it did just a few weeks ago.
Ratings shifts from my last map:
Colorado - from Likely Obama to Lean Obama
Wisconsin - from Lean Obama to Likely Obama
Michigan - from Strong Obama to Likely Obama
Maine - from Strong Obama to Likely Obama
Do I hear a call to Rob Portman for the Veep spot?
The Senate
The Democratic Party has a near-impossible task of retaining the Senate in 2012, with all of the unlikely upsets they pulled off in the sweep of 2006 up for re-election and a slim majority. They are hanging on by a thread at the moment, with just enough seats to hold the majority, assuming Bernie Sanders (Independent/Socialist - Vermont) continues to caucus with the Democrats and that likely Maine winner Angus King does as well (as he is expected to), plus the Democratic ticket wins at the top. But they have a lot of seats at risk.
Excluding the seats up for election this time, there are 37 Republicans and 30 Democrats who will return to Washington next year.
Of the 33 races up for grabs, here are my latest projections:
Safe or Strong Democratic (13)
California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Washington, West Virginia
Safe or Strong Independent (2)
Maine, Vermont
Likely Democratic (1)
Ohio
Lean Democratic (4)
Florida, New Mexico, North Dakota, Virginia
Lean Republican (6)
Indiana, Massachusetts, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, Wisconsin
Likely Republican (2)
Arizona, Nebraska
Safe or Strong Republican (5)
Mississippi, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Wyoming
So, in the range of likely scenarios, Republicans could up their total to as many as 54 seats or, if the national tide somehow turns, fall back to 42. Clearly there is a lot yet to be decided in the Senate.
The House
Republicans have a massive structural advantage in this year's House elections thanks to redistricting. Republican victories in state houses and gubernatorial races over the past few years have given them the right to draw a lot of congressional districts to their advantage. Plus, the continued practice of drawing black-majority districts (a product of the Voting Rights Act) naturally concentrates heavily Democratic black voters in a smaller number of House districts, leading to a few solidly Democratic districts in urban areas and a number of modestly Republican seats in the suburbs and exurbs.
How big is the GOP structural advantage? Looking at the Cook Partisan Voting Index, which measures how much more Republican or Democratic a district is than the nation as a whole, with the new house districts we see:
Solidly Democratic Districts (RPI +10 Democratic or higher) = 111
Likely Democratic Districts (RPI of 5 to 9) = 44
Lean Democratic Districts (RPI of 1 to 4) = 37
Toss-Up Districts (RPI = 0) = 9
Lean Republican Districts (RPI of 1 to 4) = 45
Likely Republican Districts (RPI of 5 to 9) = 78
Solidly Republican Districts (RPI +10 Republican or higher) = 111
What this means is that if the Congressional vote split exactly 50/50, the GOP would win between 234 and 243 seats, a solid majority in either case. For the Democrats to get to the magic number of 218, they would need to win nationally by about 2%.
And at the moment, they trail in the generic ballot by 2%, leading to a very solid GOP majority.
A lot could change in this projection as a few point swing can have big effects on the House total. But it sure looks good for the GOP in the House at this stage of the game.
If you like this site, tell your friends.
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