Even in grossly overweighted democratic polling Obama cannot poll past 46%.
Short of some sort of some sort of unforseeable incident such as war or something along those lines, Obama will be slaughtered.
Now mind you, I don’t think Romney is a great choice overall, but when compared to Obama, he’s better by far.
At this point, I think Obama’s best case scenario is 43-44% on election day.
No president in the modern age, with the exception of George Bush II, I believe have ended their re-election with a higher percentage of the vote than they got in polling at the begining of the contest. Most end up a few points LOWER.
What is even more significant, is that control of the Senate and House is also very likely, as well.
“At this point, I think Obama’s best case scenario is 43-44% on election day.
No president in the modern age, with the exception of George Bush II, I believe have ended their re-election with a higher percentage of the vote than they got in polling at the begining of the contest. Most end up a few points LOWER.”
And that is the key point. Obama is going to get fewer votes this year than last. And for every 100 2008 voters that choose not to vote for him in 2012 about 50 will vote for the Republican. (I am assuming the other 50 are die hard Yellow Dog Democrats who would either stay home or vote for the Green Party candidate.) That means a 1.5% swing in the state percentage for every percentage point that Obama loses.
Going by that assumption, Obama gets no states that he did not win in 2008 This gives the Republicans a base of 180 electoral votes. Throw in Indiana and that raises the solid Republican total to 191.
Now start shifting the vote by a percentage point at a time. If Obama gets 1% fewer votes in 2012, that shifts all of the totals by 1.5%, and the Republicans pick up Florida, North Carolina and New Hampshire (38 electoral votes). If 2 out of 100 2008 Obama voters do not vote for The Won, this gives a 3% shift and we get Virginia, Iowa, Colorado and I believe Ohio (46 votes). That leaves the Republicans with 275 electoral votes right there.
Obama is bleeding independents. They gave him his victory in 2008 because he ran as a post-partisan and post-racial president. (Which, of course, he has not delivered.) And, despite the numbers out of Washington, the economy is not healthy.
We are not in a recession (yet), but we did not have a recovery after exiting the 2008 crash, so the unemployment rate reflects that large numbers of workers have simply left the job market. Add in gasoline-based inflation, and the misery index is still sky-high. So assuming even a minor shift in vote seems like a conservative estimate.
It could end up as columnist Don Surber predicted with a 40 state sweep for the Republicans. (Especially if we go back into recession this summer.)