SL Tribune

[Admin]

90% of the country didnt even vote. And of those who did something like 52% voted Obama vs 47% Romney.

Nope, not even close. To be accurate it was 50.89% for Obama, 47.39% for Romney (http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/national.php) The spread was 3.5%, not 5% - hardly the landslide our left leaning media would like us to believe it was. However, as Jamesdeluxe will readily point out (and for which I owe him a dinner at Porcupine here in Utah), six months out I fully expected a landslide the other way.

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[rfarren]

However, as Jamesdeluxe will readily point out (and for which I owe him a dinner at Porcupine here in Utah), six months out I fully expected a landslide the other way.

Will you be ordering crow for dinner? Perhaps, humble pie for desert?

[rfarren]

that one candidate winning a large majority of the vote in limited areas - i.e., urban areas - can skew the election results on a geographic basis. It's still amazing to me that you can lose 90% of the country and win the election.

Again, that is a specious argument. Voting is done by population not geography. The truth of the matter is: the majority of Americans live in cities and metropolitan areas, therefore rural precincts although more numerous don't have as much proportional voting power.

[Admin]

Will you be ordering crow for dinner? Perhaps, humble pie for desert?

Yes to both, along with a healthy serving of frustration on the side.

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[jamesdeluxe]

as Jamesdeluxe will readily point out (and for which I owe him a dinner at Porcupine here in Utah), six months out I fully expected a landslide the other way.

During our occasional back and forth since making the bet exactly one year ago, I don't recall Admin using the "L" word in my online presence -- I'm sure that was saved for targeted audiences -- however, his belief in a GOP win never flagged, even after I made my "buzzards are circling" post (on page 1 of this thread) three days out.

The back story for this epic wager, along with the dénouement at the Porcupine in two weeks, will be covered in an upcoming FTO feature article.

[berkshireskier]

90% of the country didnt even vote. And of those who did something like 52% voted Obama vs 47% Romney.

Nope, not even close. To be accurate it was 50.89% for Obama, 47.39% for Romney (http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/national.php) The spread was 3.5%, not 5% - hardly the landslide our left leaning media would like us to believe it was. However, as Jamesdeluxe will readily point out (and for which I owe him a dinner at Porcupine here in Utah), six months out I fully expected a landslide the other way.

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Well said. And that 3.5% margin of victory of Obama was heavily skewed by his overwhelming margin of victory among a narrow slice of voters (i.e., he won 99% of the "under 30, African-American, female" vote). I never thought this would be a landslide for the Republicans. They ran a terrible campaign, almost from the beginning of the primaries and Romney was never a good political candidate - with a series of missteps and political gaffes that were hard to imagine. Although I'm not sure he would have won even without those mistakes. In the last two elections, the Democrats have done a much better job at mobilizing their base and getting them to vote. I think the Republicans face a tough time in winning national elections, if this trend continues. And I do think Romney's comments about the 47%, although foolish to actually state in a public forum, have some element of truth to them. We do seem to have larger and larger percentages of our population either directly or indirectly dependent on the federal or state or local governments for at least part of their existence and these groups will NOT be voting for Republicans (why would they?). Another factor that does not trend well for the Republicans.

[berkshireskier]

that one candidate winning a large majority of the vote in limited areas - i.e., urban areas - can skew the election results on a geographic basis. It's still amazing to me that you can lose 90% of the country and win the election.

Again, that is a specious argument. Voting is done by population not geography. The truth of the matter is: the majority of Americans live in cities and metropolitan areas, therefore rural precincts although more numerous don't have as much proportional voting power.

Obviously, majority rules in most elections in our country (except for that pesky thing called the "Electoral College"), but I'm not sure that that makes the people who live in the 90% of the country that did not vote for Obama feel any better about the election. Given the electoral split across the wide geographic boundaries of the US, you have to wonder if the political make-up of the 50 states really makes sense any more? Maybe Texas (and some other states or regions) SHOULD secede and go their own ways.

[rfarren]

Obviously, majority rules in most elections in our country (except for that pesky thing called the "Electoral College"), but I'm not sure that that makes the people who live in the 90% of the country that did not vote for Obama feel any better about the election. Given the electoral split across the wide geographic boundaries of the US, you have to wonder if the political make-up of the 50 states really makes sense any more? Maybe Texas (and some other states or regions) SHOULD secede and go their own ways.

Seriously?!!! The benefits bestowed upon states such as texas given by the federal government are far greater than any detriment. To succeed for all intents and purposes would be economically disastrous. The electoral college comes down to a states right issue. It gives disproportionate power to smaller and generally more rural states. If you were to get rid of it, and institute a system such as popular vote, the middle of the country would be worse in terms of proportional representation. If all states were to follow the plan laid forth by the article you linked to, Obama would still have won although by lesser margins. However, that would change how candidates campaign, and their ground game. Given that Obama's ground game was superior in the last to elections, and he hardly had any offices in the middle of the country, one could assume that many of those counties wouldn't have voted in such a large margin towards Romney. This Pennsylvania plan sounds like sour grapes, coming from a state in which the districts have already been gerrymandered to give disproportionate power to rural and less populated areas.

[socal]

I wont even touch on seceding....

You should take a look at the states that receive the most federal aid I think you'd be surprised that a lot of the so called red states do a lot of taking....look how low CA is on there.

https://www.census.gov/prod/www/abs/fas.html

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[jamesdeluxe]

You should take a look at the states that receive the most federal aid I think you'd be surprised that a lot of the so called red states do a lot of taking.

As a resident of the state that's dead last in what we give to the federal government as opposed to what we get back, this ^^ galls us to no end.

[Marc_C]

Will you be ordering crow for dinner? Perhaps, humble pie for desert?

Yes to both, along with a healthy serving of frustration on the side.

[Tony Crocker]

I stumbled upon this old thread, which is certainly worth revisiting in view of 2016.

Nate Silver deserves credit for framing his election forecasts as probability distributions. He gave Trump a 29% chance of winning in 2016 and said there was a 10% chance Trump would lose the popular vote and win the electoral college. Usually there's only a 1-2% chance the popular and electoral college winners will not be the same. In 2016 the electoral college skew vs. the popular vote favored Trump over Clinton by 2.86%. Most national polls in 2016 were not that far off in the popular vote. Real Clear Politics, for example, predicted Clinton would win by 3.3%, but that the electoral college margin would be thin, with Trump winning Florida, Iowa and Ohio. Note that if Clinton wins the popular vote by 3.3% instead of 2.1% she carries Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan, resulting in the exact RCP call in both popular and electoral votes. Final national polls missing the actual popular vote result by 1.2% are not a big deal.

In 2012 the electoral college skew vs. the popular vote favored Obama over Romney by 1.61%. Therefore those polls which showed the popular vote a dead heat 9 days before the election still would have resulted in an electoral college win for Obama, with Romney adding only Florida and Ohio to the 24 states he won. Romney would have had to win the popular vote by that 1.61%, adding Virginia and Colorado, in order to win the electoral college. So it was probably reasonable for Nate Silver to say Obama had 65-70% odds at the point where the popular vote was even. And then when the late polls moved toward Obama those odds would gone even higher.