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United States Election: Nov 6, 2012 |OT| - Barack Obama Re-elected

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P

pigeon

Banned
nunst055.gif

NORTH CAROLINA

Polls close: 7:30 pm ET
Pundits say:
nyt said:
North Carolina had been reliably Republican for more than two decades. Even Bill Clinton, a Southerner who managed to carry other Southern states, fell short in North Carolina. But over the past few decades, the state’s economy has become much more diversified, remaking the state’s political landscape.

Longtime economic engines in the state, like tobacco, textiles and furniture, have been fading, while newer sectors — like banking, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals and telecommunications — have been growing. New kinds of jobs have attracted new kinds of voters, and North Carolina is younger, more diverse and better educated than it used to be.

But Mr. Obama’s 2008 victory in North Carolina came early. Favorable political conditions nationally and a substantial surge in turnout pulled the state into the Democratic column ahead of schedule. North Carolina, while more competitive than it used to be, is still to the right of the national tipping point, and Mitt Romney has had a slim lead in most surveys of the state conducted this year.
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http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytime...na-obamas-2008-victory-was-ahead-of-schedule/

tnr said:
How could Obama lose 7 points nationally, yet remain close in a state that he won by just 14,000 votes in a historic election? The answer lies in the resilience of Obama’s diverse coalition and the changing composition of North Carolina’s electorate.

For the most part, Obama’s biggest losses have come from predominantly white states where Obama won plenty of moderate, former Bush voters—like Wisconsin, Montana, and Indiana. North Carolina is relatively insulated from Obama’s losses, since most of Obama's gains came from young voters, college educated whites, and African Americans, three groups where Obama's support has remained relatively resilient. Indeed, nearly half of Obama’s ’08 voters in North Carolina were non-white—more than any other battleground state. From this perspective, North Carolina has not moved toward the Democrats, but the rest of the country, where white working class voters play a more central role in the Democratic coalition, has just moved away from Obama at a faster pace. But even if Obama’s support is resilient, it’s not completely impervious to the huge national swing in Romney’s direction. Obama won by just 14,000 votes in 2008, so Romney could win the state if he could peel off even a few of Obama’s supporters.
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http://www.tnr.com/blog/electionate...-carolina-demographics-keep-obama-competitive

Early voting: North Carolina is one of the few states to allow same-day registration during early voting, meaning that a sizable number of early voters may have been unregistered -- and thus dropped by most pollsters -- until they actually cast their ballot. Early voting started October 18th and ended November 3rd; in terms of party affiliation, Democrats lead Republicans in early voting 48 to 31 (down from 51 to 28 in 2008). Early voting in 2012 added up to a whopping 62.9% of the total 2008 electorate, up from 61% that year. Turnout may be going up! And it's worth noting that 27% of early voters in North Carolina were African-American.

Voter ID: A strict voter ID law was passed in 2011 and promptly vetoed by the NC governor. There's a waiting period before they can reoffer it, so it's currently hanging fire and will not affect the 2012 elections.

Polls say: 538 gives Mitt Romney a 77% chance to win North Carolina with a lead of 2 points. The RealClearPolitics polling average is more strident, with a 3 point lead for the challenger.

Watch for: Any sign of uncertainty. Public Policy Polling is the only pollster to show North Carolina anywhere close to tied (in fact, even they show Romney with a minuscule 0.2 point lead), but they're also headquartered in North Carolina and poll it every week. Does the home court advantage count for anything in polling? If North Carolina hangs around and is too close to call, maybe it does -- and that would suggest a solid position for Obama. If he actually takes North Carolina, we're looking at 347 electoral votes. Much more likely is that Romney picks it up going away...but with same-day registration, we can't really be sure until they break open those ballots. In 2004 it took an hour to call North Carolina for W.; in 2008, it took two whole days to call Obama the winner.

edit: The latest 538 projection dropped Romney's chances to 72% with a lead of 1.6, meaning that there could be a little uncertainty either way.

northcarolina-quarter.jpg
 
Squirrel Killer

Squirrel Killer

Member
JeTmAn81 said:
The way the electoral college is set up, with the majority vote-getter in each state receiving all the votes, is the thing that doesn't make sense to me. With this system, you could have 49.9% of a state's population voting for a candidate, and that candidate receiving the equivalent of zero votes. Those voices aren't getting heard, and it leads to the current situation where candidates just focus on swing states.
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States choose the way they apportion their own Electoral College votes. Winner Take All increases each state's importance the most. Those voices are heard, they're just not having much effect (which considering the size of the electorate, isn't surprising whoever you vote for.) And it's not inherently a bad thing that campaigns focus on swing states. For one, those states change over time. Last cycle IN and MO were swing states, NV not so much. Also, fewer states to focus on means cheaper elections.
 
G

gutter_trash

Banned
Florida is a lost cause, Rick Scott is making sure of it. Romney will snag Florida causing Tuesday night to be a long night to find out the full results
 
D

Daft_Cat

Member
FieryBalrog said:
How Long Do Canadians Wait For Healthcare?
Click to expand...


Right, well I'll gladly wait a few extra weeks for a referral if it means that someone less fortunate than I has the opportunity to do the same.

That article's also misleading. Say you and I get in a car crash tomorrow and need emergency surgeries. In both countries, we end up with the necessary care ASAP. Only difference is there's a good chance you could be bankrupt the next morning.

OT, but whatever. We need some healthy poli-debate to pass the time.
 
K

Kusagari

Member
gutter_trash said:
Florida is a lost cause, Rick Scott is making sure of it. Romney will snag Florida causing Tuesday night to be a long night to find out the full results
Click to expand...

It's not like we'll know Florida's result until Wednesday anyway. People are going to be stuck voting until possibly midnight in South Florida.
 
V

VALIS

Member
Florida seems as unlikely to go for Obama for the same reasons Ohio seems likely to go for him: Those states' polls have painted a very consistent picture over the last month.
 
K

Kettch

Member
On the subject of splitting electoral college votes, it should be noted that in terms of the value of an individual vote determining the election Maine's 2nd district is currently the 8th most important in the country, ahead of places like Pennsylvania, Florida, North Carolina and Michigan. Nebraska's 2nd district is 13th.

They have a low chance of actually affecting the election, but due to the low amount of votes deciding those races their votes are more valuable than most.
 
B

BobTheFork

Member
VALIS said:
Florida seems as unlikely to go for Obama for the same reasons Ohio seems likely to go for him: Those states' polls have painted a very consistent picture over the last month.
Click to expand...

Well the polls of both states don't seem too disimiliar and there is heavy shananigans in both states with voter rights. If I made a bet though, I would bet Ohio for Obama and Florida for Rick Scott (the real winer here).
 
P

pj

Banned
Squirrel Killer said:
States choose the way they apportion their own Electoral College votes. Winner Take All increases each state's importance the most.
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Does it? Don't you think romney would have spent more than zero time in new york if it mattered that there are several million republicans living upstate?

I'm tired of ohio and florida deciding elections
 
A

AlimNassor

Banned
Gaf prepare me for disappoint, what are the chances Romney wins? I mean I don't like him, but, I don't think it's all doom and gloom, but, he wouldn't be a very good president.
 
W

Will

Neo Member
Delusibeta said:
Q: Has there been a poll which shows Romney in the lead in Ohio?
A: No.

Flick Ohio back to blue and it's 281-257 to Obama, which demonstrates how big of a pickle Romney is in. And bluntly, outside of outright treason I can't see Romney winning Ohio.
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"Enter Suffolk University’s poll of Lake County, Ohio, and a pair of towns in New Hampshire — Milford and Epping — that have reflected statewide voting trends in recent elections. In the latest little data point of an election that remains far too close to call in the last day before balloting begins in earnest, Suffolk’s survey finds Romney leading Obama in all three places. The Republican nominee is up 47 percent to 43 percent in Lake County, which has shown itself to lean just a hair more in the GOP’s direction than the state, and he holds edges of 51 percent to 46 percent in Milford and 49 percent to 47 percent in Epping.

Lake is one of four Ohio counties that favored George W. Bush in 2004, Obama in 2008 and Republican Gov. John Kasich in 2010. The other three: Cincinnati-based Hamilton County, Sandusky County and Tuscarawas County."

EARLY POLLING. IT'S ALL OVER FOR OBAMA. PANIC!
 
G

Gunstarheroes

Member
pj said:
Does it? Don't you think romney would have spent more than zero time in new york if it mattered that there are several million republicans living upstate?

I'm tired of ohio and florida deciding elections
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As someone who lives upstate, well certainly having a bigger share, still leans left/Obama from my experience.
 
E

Eric WK

Member
VALIS said:
Florida seems as unlikely to go for Obama for the same reasons Ohio seems likely to go for him: Those states' polls have painted a very consistent picture over the last month.
Click to expand...

Not exactly. Obama has maintained a sizable advantage in Ohio and narrowed Romney's in Florida, to within a percentage point.

I still think Romney wins Florida, but it's definitely more of a tossup than Ohio is.
 
R

RDreamer

Member
pj said:
Does it? Don't you think romney would have spent more than zero time in new york if it mattered that there are several million republicans living upstate?

I'm tired of ohio and florida deciding elections
Click to expand...

But if we move to a popular vote wouldn't it just mean that California, New York, and Texas decide elections? I do wonder if the democrats would have a big advantage with a popular vote scenario since their support is clustered in the cities moreso, and so GOTV efforts would be massively productive for them.
 
W

Wallach

Member
AlimNassor said:
Gaf prepare me for disappoint, what are the chances Romney wins? I mean I don't like him, but, I don't think it's all doom and gloom, but, he wouldn't be a very good president.
Click to expand...

Pretty low. Not nearly low enough. Maybe one out of five parallel universes will see President Romney tomorrow; slightly less due to the ones lost to the molemen invasions and whatnot.
 
H

Hawkian

The Cryptarch's Bane
gutter_trash said:
Florida is a lost cause, Rick Scott is making sure of it. Romney will snag Florida causing Tuesday night to be a long night to find out the full results
Click to expand...
Please, PLEASE do not call it a lost cause. I thought it was a lost cause a month ago; at present it feels like it's going to be as close as any state in the election. We are working incredibly hard and sometimes it feels like the election is Democracy vs. Rick Scott rather than Obama v. Romney, but there is not yet a clear victor in either battle.

just real quick though

FUCK RICK SCOTT
 
G

Gary Whitta

Member
Isn't Rick Scott the guy who became governor of Florida after being caught in a massive multi-million dollar Medicare fraud? America, what a country.
 
D

darkside31337

Tomodachi wa Mahou
Gary Whitta said:
Isn't Rick Scott the guy who became governor of Florida after being caught in a massive multi-million dollar Medicare fraud? America, what a country.
Click to expand...

Yes, the largest single case of medicare fraud in the history of this country.

Florida gonna Florida. I can say that because I live here. I think Obama has a chance but Rick Scott is doing a successful job making sure Romney wins the state.
 
R

Rebel Leader

THE POWER OF BUTTERSCOTCH BOTTOMS
darkside31337 said:
Yes, the largest single case of medicare fraud in the history of this country.

Florida gonna Florida. I can say that because I live here. I think Obama has a chance but Rick Scott is doing a successful job making sure Romney wins the state.
Click to expand...

What's going on? I can't seem to find out
 
P

pigeon

Banned
nunst012.gif

FLORIDA

Polls close: 8:00 ET

Pundits say:
nyt said:
The Republican Party has good reason to hold its national convention in Tampa, Fla. The Tampa area is the most competitive section of the most competitive region in one of the most competitive states in the nation — the perfect place to seek a glimmer of extra advantage in a closely-fought presidential contest.

In many ways, the Tampa area was the weakest link in the regional coalition that Barack Obama built to win Florida in 2008. The Tampa-St. Petersburg media market is home to a quarter of Florida’s registered Republicans, and Mr. Obama carried Hillsborough and Pinellas Counties — home to Tampa and St. Petersburg — by a smaller margin than Florida’s other major population centers. If Mitt Romney wants to win the state, it represents the most attractive target.

And winning Florida is a must for Mr. Romney. Based on the simulations that the FiveThirtyEight forecast model ran on Tuesday, Mr. Romney has only a 0.3 percent chance of winning the election if he loses the state.
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http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytime...-tampa-is-essential-to-romney-election-hopes/

tnr said:
Paradoxically, Obama’s resilience in Florida is partially related to his weakness there four years ago. In other states like Wisconsin, Iowa, Virginia, and Ohio, Romney will make gains by running up the score in white, rural areas where Obama outperformed Kerry by a wide margin. But McCain already ran up the score among Florida's rural voters in 2008. The Florida Panhandle and northern Florida was Obama’s weakest region of any battleground state, as he performed far worse than Kerry among these culturally southern, predominantly white, rural voters. One particularly pronounced example was Liberty County, a tiny county in the Panhandle where Obama lost by 44 points compared to Kerry’s 29-point defeat in 2004. Given that Liberty County is 18 percent black, McCain must have made extraordinary gains among the county's white voters. Romney will still make gains in these areas, but it's hard to envision the ten-plus point gains that Romney could plausibly see in southwestern Virginia or across Wisconsin and Iowa.

Of course, Romney doesn't need 10-plus point gains in a state that Obama only carried by 2.8 points and Florida has plenty of other swing regions and swing voters where Romney can and will make additional improvements. Many of these are concentrated along the vaunted I-4 corridor, and particularly in the Tampa/St. Petersburg metropolitan area. Romney will also need outsized gains in southwest Florida and Miami Dade County, where Romney could potentially reverse Obama's gains among Cuban voters. But Romney will find it more difficult to reverse Obama's improvement over Kerry's performance in Jacksonville and Orlando-Kissimmee, where strong black turnout and a growing and heavily Democratic Puerto Rican population have resulted in durable changes.
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http://www.tnr.com/blog/electionate/109342/why-florida-remains-so-close

Early voting: Governor Rick Scott cut early voting days from 14 to 8 since 2008, including the Sunday before Election Day that many African-American churches used to bus their congregations to the polls. Those churches responded with an even more aggressive early voting program and erased the GOP's absentee lead in the first two days of early voting -- a feat that took six days in 2008. Today the Democrats have a four-point early voting lead, down from nine points in 2008. The early vote totals 52.9% of the total 2008 vote, just barely up from 52%. That means that Obama's reduced early vote lead has all but erased his three-point margin of victory last time.

Voter ID: An extensive voter suppression attempt, including banning address changes at the polls, voter ID and third-party registration limits, was struck down under the Voting Rights Act. Voter ID will not be required in Florida this year.

Polls say: It's real close. 538 says Romney has a 56% chance to win the Sunshine State by a margin of less than half a point. The RealClearPolitics average shows Romney with a larger 1.5-point margin. (Personally, I think there's a possibility that the polls are having some systematic trouble with the diverse nature of Florida's Hispanic electorate, leading both aggregators to undercount Obama supporters -- but we'll see.)

Watch for: The inevitable recount. Even if everything goes exactly as projected, Romney's margin is in automatic recount territory. If the state is called for anybody before midnight, that person's overperforming well enough that they'll probably win the election -- but the odds are Florida will hang on to the bitter end. Florida took three hours to call in 2008, four hours to call in 2004, and five judges to call in 2000. That last little tidbit might be the most disturbing historical example -- because if through some mischance Romney walks away with Ohio and a couple of other swing states but stays pretty close to the projections elsewhere, this election will come down to one more recount in Palm Beach County.

edit: Florida is the only state to have flipped in the final 538 update, going from Romney by .4 (56%) to Obama by .2 (53%). Needless to say, this just makes the odds of a recount even higher -- and makes it even more likely that a Romney victory would come only after another agonizing few weeks of uncertainty.

florida-quarter.jpg
 
T

The Technomancer

card-carrying scientician
Hurricane Sandy is actually a great example of one of the strengths of the electoral college system. Its basically a certainty that the aftermath of the hurricane is going to cause some kind of depression in turnout in the effected states (could be a little, could be significant) but as long as we assume that those who are turning out are a "representative sample" of its entire population the state's contribution to the national election remains identical.

Basically the good thing about the system is that it ties weight to population (via congressional membership), not turnout.
 
Squirrel Killer

Squirrel Killer

Member
pj said:
Does it? Don't you think romney would have spent more than zero time in new york if it mattered that there are several million republicans living upstate?
Click to expand...
I didn't say that. What I said is that WTA gives the most "bang for the buck" to a candidate winning a state. If a state split their EC votes proportional to its popular vote, there's not much bang for the buck since most states would be close to a 50-50 split. Split on Congressional districts, and you'd just see swing districts instead of states.

pj said:
I'm tired of ohio and florida deciding elections
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2008, 1996, 1992, 1988, 1984, 1980 say, "Hi."

RDreamer said:
But if we move to a popular vote wouldn't it just mean that California, New York, and Texas decide elections? I do wonder if the democrats would have a big advantage with a popular vote scenario since their support is clustered in the cities moreso, and so GOTV efforts would be massively productive for them.
Click to expand...
It wouldn't be states (or cities as that one YouTube video claims,) it would be regions. The Atlantic coast, Southern California, the northern Pacific coast, probably the Chicago/St Louis corridor, and a couple of hot spots in Texas would get the focus.
 
F

Flo_Evans

Member
I hope Obama wins florida... I want a crushing defeat not a slim victory.

Also, fuck you guys with early voting! Can't wait to figure out how to get my kid to daycare tomorrow and vote at the same time.

Last election I had to wait 4-5 hours to vote. This election I am in a different location so I hope it is not as bad.
 
Z

Zzoram

Member
The Technomancer said:
Hurricane Sandy is actually a great example of one of the strengths of the electoral college system. Its basically a certainty that the aftermath of the hurricane is going to cause some kind of depression in turnout in the effected states (could be a little, could be significant) but as long as we assume that those who are turning out are a "representative sample" of its entire population the state's contribution to the national election remains identical.

Basically the good thing about the system is that it ties weight to population (via congressional membership), not turnout.
Click to expand...

This.
 
Squirrel Killer

Squirrel Killer

Member
The Technomancer said:
Hurricane Sandy is actually a great example of one of the strengths of the electoral college system. Its basically a certainty that the aftermath of the hurricane is going to cause some kind of depression in turnout in the effected states (could be a little, could be significant) but as long as we assume that those who are turning out are a "representative sample" of its entire population the state's contribution to the national election remains identical.

Basically the good thing about the system is that it ties weight to population (via congressional membership), not turnout.
Click to expand...
Agreed.
 
M

Mobius 1

Member
I can't vote, since I didn't bother with going through with citizenship yet.

But since your natives love to yap about freedom, liberty, democracy and all that, put it to actual use and go fucking vote.
 
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