Barackface

Monday, October 29, 2012

Tight (2)

English: 1860 elections in the USA results by state (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I am not counting on North Carolia (sorry Lamont), but everywhere else we are competing, even in Florida we are. Obama is looking at a clear electoral college victory.

Tight
The state of play: Where we are, ten days out

Ten days before the election, the race for the presidency is essentially where the median political-science forecast issued two months ago projected it would be: a statistical dead heat in the popular vote, as measured by the latest tracking polls. ...... except for some political scientists, almost no one envisioned this state of affairs a month ago .... Obama still holding an edge in electoral-college votes, even as the national tracking polls are dead even ..... projects Mr Obama to win 332 electoral-college votes compared to 206 for Mr Romney ..... expects Mr Obama to win somewhere close to 302 electoral-college votes ...... Ohio is the main pillar in the Obama firewall. ..... Mr Romney has racked up larger polling leads in a few states. ..... “on average, 50% of the national two-party vote translates into 247 electoral-college votes” .... a great deal of uncertainty regarding the true relationship between the popular and electoral-college vote. ..... dwindling number of undecideds—now only about 5% of the electorate

Storms and elections: The politics of Hurricane Sandy

A well-handled disaster can strengthen an incumbent president .... To be brutal, a certain amount of bad weather on election day helps conservatives in every democracy. In crude terms, car-driving conservative retirees still turn out in driving rain, when bus-taking lower-income workers just back from a night shift are more likely to give rain-soaked polls a miss. ...... The very first early voters are those who cannot wait to vote: they are the partisans who could be seen queuing outside polling stations in Ohio or Florida on the first mornings of early voting, like bargain-hunters hitting the sales. ..... There are others who believe that Sandy will benefit the president, with the storm freezing the election campaign, and Mr Romney's perceived momentum, in place

G.O.P. Turns Fire on Obama Pillar, the Auto Bailout

Mr. Obama’s relatively strong standing in most polls in Ohio so far has been attributed by members of both parties to the recovery of the auto industry, which has helped the economy here outperform the national economy. ..... Romney incorrectly told a rally in Defiance, Ohio, late last week outright that Jeep was considering moving its production to China. (Jeep is discussing increasing production in China for sales within China; it is not moving jobs out of Ohio or the United States, or building cars in China for export to the United States.) ...... dispatched the investment banker who helped develop the bailout, Steven Rattner, here to discuss Jeep’s plans and the auto rescue with local news organizations. ..... The auto bailout was one of the first major moves of Mr. Obama’s presidency, and gave Mr. Romney an early chance in opposing it to prove his conservative credentials. ..... Romney wrote an Op-Ed article in the The New York Times — given the title by the newspaper “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt.’’ In the piece Mr. Romney wrote that in the event of a bailout, “You can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye.” ........ Jeep began a joint manufacturing venture in China in 1984 and today makes some vehicles in Egypt and Venezuela.