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From the most accurate pollster of 2012: Pennsylvania Could Be a Path Forward for G.O.P.
New York Times ^ | 11/24/2012 | Nate Silver

Posted on 11/24/2012 6:29:25 AM PST by SeekAndFind

The last ballots in the presidential election were cast more than two weeks ago. But votes in 37 states, and the District of Columbia, are still being counted, with the results yet to be officially certified.

President Obama’s national margin over Mitt Romney has increased as additional ballots have been added to the tally. According to the terrific spreadsheet maintained by David Wasserman of the Cook Political Report, Mr. Obama now leads Mr. Romney by 3.3 percentage points nationally, up from 2.5 percentage points in the count just after the election.

Turnout has grown to about 127 million voters, down from roughly 131 million in 2008. The gap could close further as additional ballots are counted. The newly counted ballots have also shifted the relative order of the states.

Immediately after the election, it appeared that Colorado was what we called the “tipping-point state”: the one that gave Mr. Obama his decisive 270th electoral vote once you sort the states in order of most Democratic to least Democratic.

Mr. Obama’s margin in Colorado has expanded to 5.5 percentage points from 4.7 percentage points as more ballots have been counted, however. He now leads there by a wider margin than in Pennsylvania, where his margin is 5.0 percentage points. Neither state has certified its results, so the order could flip again, but if the results hold, then Pennsylvania, not Colorado, will have been the tipping-point state in the election.

Does this suggest that Mr. Romney’s campaign was smart to invest resources in Pennsylvania in the closing days of the campaign?

The short answer is yes. The longer answer is that it might have been better served by contesting Pennsylvania throughout the campaign, rather than just at the last minute.

(Excerpt) Read more at fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; US: Pennsylvania
KEYWORDS: forward; gop; pennsylvania
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Nate Silver observes:

Pennsylvania alone would not have won the election for Mr. Romney. But if the national climate had been slightly better for him over all, he might have won Ohio and Florida. Winning Pennsylvania as well would have given Mr. Romney the Electoral College, even if he had lost Colorado, Virginia and the other swing states that Mr. Obama in fact carried.

1 posted on 11/24/2012 6:29:28 AM PST by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

These predictions are meaningless when one of the contestants is willing to use any and every illegal and immoral trick in the bag in order to win.

This past election was stolen. Period.

All of this “if the conservatives want to win, they need to become liberals”-type of analysis is merely after-the-fact propaganda.


2 posted on 11/24/2012 6:32:12 AM PST by Ghost of Philip Marlowe (Prepare for survival.)
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To: SeekAndFind

Interesting.


3 posted on 11/24/2012 6:35:05 AM PST by SoFloFreeper
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To: Ghost of Philip Marlowe
All of this “if the conservatives want to win, they need to become liberals”-type of analysis is merely after-the-fact propaganda.

Is that Silver's argument here?

4 posted on 11/24/2012 6:39:39 AM PST by SoFloFreeper
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To: SeekAndFind

I think if GOTV wasn’t crippled by ORCA, we could have won PA.

I still can’t believe how much of a disaster ORCA was. The Romney campaign would have been better off with strike lists.


5 posted on 11/24/2012 6:41:35 AM PST by Shadow44
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To: SeekAndFind

Did anyone notice how the Walmart protest turned out? It seems that if you have to use actual bodies in place of rigged voting machines, there are a lot fewer leftists than appear to be voting.


6 posted on 11/24/2012 6:44:41 AM PST by Steamburg (The contents of your wallet is the only language Politicians understand.)
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To: SeekAndFind

I believe Pennsylvania should be contested — but not because Nate Silver says so. Nate Silver is the enemy.


7 posted on 11/24/2012 6:44:51 AM PST by WashingtonSource
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To: SeekAndFind
Turnout has grown to about 127 million voters, down from roughly 131 million in 2008. The gap could close further as additional ballots are counted.

Trying to put lipstick on a pig. He really ought to mention, as an esteemed political operative and statistician, the voting age population grew by probably 10 million, so that turnout is actually going to slip even more in a percentage basis. This means neither candidate was all that attractive. Furthermore,he really ought to be questioned whether Obama had given him the precinct quotas sent out to the community organizers to be met by any means necessary, allowing him to propagate the "turnout will be a lot like 2008" myth. Actually, measured against 2008, turnout was down substantially, so how did polls based on 2008 turnout perform so well?

8 posted on 11/24/2012 6:45:09 AM PST by gusopol3
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To: SeekAndFind

The Republicans keep choosing idiots like Romney and we will lose. Very easy to see and prove. Dole, McCain, Romney are the worst people on Earth to choose. Oh well if the GOPe does not wake up, we will continue to lose.


9 posted on 11/24/2012 6:45:37 AM PST by napscoordinator (GOP Candidate 2020 - "Bloomberg 2020 - We vote for whatever crap the GOP puts in front of us.")
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To: napscoordinator

You honestly believe Newt, Perry and/or Ric Santorum would be any better?

Could Herman Cain defeat Obama? Heck, he couldn’t even defeat Gloria Allred.


10 posted on 11/24/2012 6:51:44 AM PST by SeekAndFind
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To: napscoordinator

Ok. Just who was running on the GOP side who we should have chosen? Ron Paul? John Huntsman? Newt Gingrich? Rick Santorum?

No one else was really running. Of the above, I would have been supportive of Santorum, but all of them would have been weaker candidates than Romney. I’m sure at some point he would have self-destructed on the rape issues, as those GOP senatorial candidates did. There is a lot of noise about how many “moderates” would have supported Huntsman, but I don’t believe it for a minute—for every moderate we got, we would have lost 3 conservatives. Newt was good at debating, but had lots of baggage. And Ron Paul has more skeletons in his basement than John Wayne Gacy.

Ultimately, you are stuck with the people who are running. McCain was a very poor candidate, but I’m not sure if anyone could have beaten Obama in 2008 given how sour the electorate was on Bush and the adulation for “The One”.


11 posted on 11/24/2012 6:56:20 AM PST by rbg81
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To: SeekAndFind

The GOP needs to concentrate on eliminating the massive voter fraud organized and financed by the democrat party.

Until that happens they stand little chance of winning the presidency or senate.


12 posted on 11/24/2012 6:58:07 AM PST by Iron Munro (Big Moo & Bronco 'Bama = Robbing From The Hood and Boy Blunder)
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To: SeekAndFind

Rick Santorum would have fought for it at least. Romney was a weak girly candidate who I knew was going to lose. He wanted the Presidency given to him without working for it. That is pretty much his whole life....easy. You can’t run for President that way. You have to work hard for it. Romney didn’t know that. He thought he was going to have voters come in flock for him just because...it doesn’t work that way as he learned big time on election day. He probably is still in shock over the ass kicking he got. lol.


13 posted on 11/24/2012 7:03:27 AM PST by napscoordinator (GOP Candidate 2020 - "Bloomberg 2020 - We vote for whatever crap the GOP puts in front of us.")
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To: napscoordinator

RE: Rick Santorum would have fought for it at least.

I wonder, how he’s going to answer the abortion-in-case-of-rape question. He is VERY OPPOSED to abortion in ALMOST ALL circumstances.


14 posted on 11/24/2012 7:08:03 AM PST by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

I wonder, how he’s going to answer the abortion-in-case-of-rape question. He is VERY OPPOSED to abortion in ALMOST ALL circumstances.

Good. I guess telling the truth is a bad thing. Actually he would have turned the question into an economic answer which would have worked. The guy is the best of the best but conservatives are too liberal now adays....sadly.


15 posted on 11/24/2012 7:09:51 AM PST by napscoordinator (GOP Candidate 2020 - "Bloomberg 2020 - We vote for whatever crap the GOP puts in front of us.")
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To: Ghost of Philip Marlowe

Pennsylvania was lost (if we ever really had a shot at it) the moment the PA court overturned the Voter ID law a few weeks prior to the election. At that point you knew the Philly vote-fraud machine was going to manufacture the necessary turnout for Obama — which they did.

PA is a sucker play for Republicans.


16 posted on 11/24/2012 7:16:41 AM PST by Tallguy (Hunkered down in Pennsylvania.)
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Comment #17 Removed by Moderator

To: gusopol3
2008 58% turnout 131,498,000

2004 56% turnout 122,239,000

2000 50% turnout 105,417,000

1996 49% turnout 96,275,000

1992 55% turnout 104,423,000

1988 50% turnout 91,594,000

1984 53% turnout 92,653,000

1980 53% turnout 86,509,000

1976 54% turnout 81,531,000

1972 55% turnout 77,744,000

1968 61% turnout 74,000,000

1964 62% turnout 70,639,000

1960 63% turnout 68,832,000

18 posted on 11/24/2012 7:35:56 AM PST by gusopol3
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To: AdmSmith; AnonymousConservative; Berosus; bigheadfred; Bockscar; ColdOne; Convert from ECUSA; ...

Forward!

So, how did Pennsylvania vote again? How about that big wave of protest votes against Obama for his anti-coal policies? Thanks SeekAndFind.


19 posted on 11/24/2012 7:36:52 AM PST by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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To: Tallguy
Actually, the voter ID law was booby prize given to us when State GOP Chairman Rob Gleason strong armed Pennsylvania legislators into opposing our Senate Majority Leader's bill which would have awarded Pennsylvania's electoral votes by congressional district, same method as used in Maine and Nebraska. We have a GOP governor pledged to sign it and majorities in both chambers which actually increased with this election.

Gleason's excuse for opposing the bill was the cockamamie theory that we could win all 20. Sure, and if we did, you'd be looking at a 330 plus electoral vote blowout nationwide where Pennsylvania would make NO difference. His reason is that the hand of the conservative wing of the GOP would have been strengthened and Gleason hates conservatives worse than Democrats.

With Democrats actually forced to compete for electoral votes in the marginal districts of Pennsylvania where they did not have fraud machines in place, they would have turned out fewer fake zombie voters in Philadelphia and possibly made the races down ticket far more competitive.

20 posted on 11/24/2012 7:42:22 AM PST by Vigilanteman (Obama: Fake black man. Fake Messiah. Fake American. How many fakes can you fit in one Zer0?)
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