Barone Makes His Election Call

Michael Barone is one of the big names in election prognostication … and he’s called the election for Romney, and doesn’t even think it will be that close.

He’s saying 315-223, and is giving Romney the swing states North Carolina, Florida, Ohio, Virginia, Colorado, Iowa, New Hampshire, and Wisconsin … plus Pennsylvania.

Admittedly Barone is a conservative, but this is one heck of a bit of optimism.

Is he seeing something I’m not? I’m still going with Intrade, which continues to predict a narrow Obama victory.

I’m not big on tendencies, but there’s one that’s bugging me about the election. When incumbents lose electoral votes in their reelection bid … they tend to lose a ton of them.

I’m thinking right now that Obama might lose 70-100 electoral votes off of 2008, but still win a majority.

And that just doesn’t happen very often. Here’s the incumbents that have won reelection in the last 90 years: G.W.Bush, Clinton, Reagan, Nixon, Eisenhower, Roosevelt. Every single one of those guys got more electoral votes the second time around.

And here’s the incumbents who’ve lost: G.H.W. Bush, Carter, Hoover. Each of them lost over 240 electoral votes the second time around.

There just isn’t much middle ground for Obama to lose some electoral votes and still win the election. To find someone who did this, you need to go all the way back to Wilson, who lost 158 votes and survived to (not) fight another day.

I dunno … I just don’t see Obama as another Wilson. Although … Barone’s prediction is in line with Wilson’s result, although Wilson started out with a much bigger electoral cushion than Obama did.

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Comments

[mike shupp]

It's a hard election to call. On paper, Obama looks ahead. BUT Obama voters are disproportionately young, black or hispanic, a/o low income -- and those are all groups with a history of low turnouts. Republican voters are older, whiter, more affluent -- and all those go with high turnout rates.

30-50 years ago this would not have mattered so much. There were lots of older white Democrats and still some older black Republicans. But party racial/social compositions have changed since Nixon's time and don't show signs of reverting. So the extent to which Obama can motivate his low voting supporters is crucial -- and at this point totally unpredictable.

My bet at this point ... I'll go for Obama with 288 electoral votes, or thereabouts. I don't quite see it as a "win" for Obama, so much as a loss for Romney. There isn't huge enthusiasm for Obama this time round, but Romney looks worse to many people, perhaps enough worse to motivate Democrats.

[David Tufte]

I'm inclined to agree with you ...

But I don't have much of a basis to go on. I'm living in a 70% Mormon town, and way too many people are heavily invested emotionally in Romney winning. Otherwise rational people in my circle just aren't that rational this election cycle.