Make Your Electoral College Prediction Here

November 05 2012 | vanity

[Para-Ord.45]

Make your Presidential pick here. Winner gets a free toaster or a massive tax hike ( to be determined).

Keep it short, College Numbers.

Here`s mine:

Obama: 271

Romney: 267

( Au: $5000.00 / ounce )

[The Klingon]

R 315 O 223

R 52 O 47

[American Constitutionalist]

Just trying to be optimistic.

[MrChips]

I have Mitt at 321. I give him the usual suspects, + NV, + WI, +PA, +IA, + CO.

[Yashcheritsiy]

This is also an article being sent out this evening to several commentary sites. The article has an EV map graphic attached, which will not show up here.

I would like to take this opportunity to make some predictions about this election. Unlike many of my contributions, this one is not written to make a point, or to argue an ideology. It’s going to simply be a straight out listing of my predictions, prefaced by some reasoning for why I forecast as I do.

A couple of disclaimers before I begin. First, I make no claims to being a professional at this, in any way. I am not a professional political consultant, pollster, statistician, or number-cruncher. I’m just a guy with an inordinate, perhaps even unhealthy, interest in the polling side of politics, and who reads widely (yes, even people like Nate Silver) on the topic, and who has internalized a lot of the methodology and “conventional wisdom” that surrounds political polling, as well as some of the analyses for why the conventional wisdom is not always correct.

Second, when I attempted to make predictions the night before Election Day in 2008, I did a horrible, horrible job. I’ll admit it. My predictions were off by a mile, in many cases. For instance, I had McCain winning, for one, and had him winning several states that he, in fact, lost by almost ten points. Looking back, I can honestly assess that I was doing a little wishcasting of my own – replacing the data that I knew the polls were telling me with a gut “feeling” of what “ought” to be. In retrospect, I know that the reputable pollsters were all pointing to an Obama win – but I just “felt” that there was no way the American people could be stupid enough to elect someone like him. In that I was incorrect – 53% of us were. This time around, I have made a conscious effort to correct this previous flaw – perhaps to the point where some readers may find my predictions to be rather eeeyorish, compared to some of the more sanguine predictions coming from folks on the Right like Michael Barone and George Will (who can be rather pessimistic himself). Much of this correction has come from making the closer acquaintance with the ins-and-outs of polling science that I mentioned above.

As such, my predictions below come from the combination of a variety of sources – polls themselves, arguments that I have seen (and made) about polling methodologies, internal polls from the campaigns themselves, demographic arguments, etc. I cannot possibly begin to lay out the case for each and every particular prediction in each state as to why I am arriving at the conclusions I am. To try to do so would require me to finish this article after Election Day is over. So please – if you have some questions about something, I can try to answer with the particulars, but just know that you might get more than you bargained for, in some cases.

Anywise, without further delay, on to the predictions:

Overall popular vote: Romney 51% - Obama 47%

Swing states:

North Carolina – Romney 53% - Obama 46%

Florida – Romney 52% - Obama 47%

Iowa – Romney 50% - Obama 49%

Ohio – Romney 50% - Obama 48%

Virginia – Romney 51% - Obama 48%

Colorado – Romney 52% - Obama 47%

New Hampshire – Romney 50% - Obama 48%

Wisconsin – Romney 50% - Obama 49%

Michigan – Obama 50% - Romney 48%

Minnesota – Obama 51% - Romney 48%

Nevada – Obama 52% - Romney 47%

Pennsylvania – Obama 50% - Romney 48%

EV tally - Romney 296, Obama 242

The purple color for Maine indicates a splitting of the EVs. I think there’s a good chance that Romney may take the more conservative, rural ME-2 district, which means he would get apportioned an electoral vote from the state for it.

Some conservatives may be disappointed that I’m not showing Romney just blowing Obama out of the water in some kind of 350 EV landslide. I just don’t think we’re seeing that kind of election shaping up. Yes, Republicans and conservatives are obviously more energetic and enthusiastic than Democrats and leftists, and independents are favoring Romney pretty heavily. However, I still don’t think this is going to be the “Reagan in 1980” thrashing that some hope it will be. Instead, I think it’s going to be more like Bush’s victory in 2004 – not spectacular, but solid enough. And hey, as long as Romney is over 270, he wins regardless.

Now for some down ticket predictions in the Senate. Because I have not been following these races and the polling as closely, I’m not going to attempt to make numerical predictions – just which candidate I think will win, based on what I have seen.

Competitive Senate races:

Wisconsin – Thompson (R) narrowly defeats Baldwin (R gain)

Ohio – Brown (D) narrowly defeats Mandel (D retain)

Florida – Nelson (D) narrowly defeats Mack (D retain)

Nebraska – Fischer (R) handily defeats Kerrey (R gain)

Missouri – McCaskill (D) narrowly defeats Akin (D retain)

Montana – Rehberg (R) narrowly unseats Tester (R gain)

Connecticut – Murphy (D) defeats McMahon in a somewhat close result (D pickup from Independent)

Virginia – Allen (R) narrowly defeats Kaine (R gain)

Indiana – Donnelly (D) narrowly defeats Mourdock (D gain)

Massachusetts – Warren (D) narrowly unseats Brown (D gain)

Pennsylvania – Smith (R) narrowly defeats Casey (R gain)

There are many other Senate races going on, of course, most of which are not in doubt in any way as to their results. Overall, I think the GOP will end the night with a net of +3 seats. They won’t take the Senate, but will pick up some seats, narrowing the divide in that House. Please keep in mind that these calls on these races do not reflect what I would like to see happen (I would like to see the GOP win ALL of them), but what I think is going to happen, based on all the data I have seen.

As for the House, based on general partisan affiliation and enthusiasm data, I firmly believe the GOP will hold onto the House, but that they won’t add much, if any, to their overall total. Some Republicans will lose their seats, while other Republican challengers will turn out sitting Democrats. I would say that there will probably be anywhere from a -8 to a +8 seat change for the GOP – in other words, staying pretty steady for a body with 435 total members.

Well, this is it. I guess we’ll see late Tuesday night or Wednesday morning how close I actually came this time around.

[Kirkwood]

R: 271
O: 267

[Kirkwood]

R: 271
O: 267

[FreedomForce]

Romney: More than Obama

Obama: Less than Romney

That’s good enough for me.

[Fullclip]

R/R - 316. O/B - 222

[JediJones]

The same results as 2004 except NM, NV and IA go to Obama and NH goes to Romney.

R 279 O 259

R 51.2 O 47.8

[truthluva]

Romney/Ryan - 277
Obama/Biden - 261

[Doogle]

Romney 325+

Odungo 16 and a free dead Odungo phone

[condi2008]

Romney wins OH, CO, NH, IA, FL, NC, VA, and he may very well may win PA, MN, and WI too.

I think he wins them all...ending with 329 electoral votes.

[Wyrd bið ful aræd]

Its going to be either a complete Romney landslide (not likely), or a knife-edge victory for Obama or Romney.

Discomfortingly, I've gone over all kind of data and come to the same conclusion as you -- a narrow Obama victory, most likely put over the edge by cheating.

The truth is the swing states are simply not predictable, and it could go either way. But I'm pessimistic so I'm afraid Bamster will pull it off.

But remember -- think of the ratio of prayers flying up to heaven from a right:left perspective. We've got thme beat by a landslide in that department, so just trust in God and put this thing in His hands.

[trappedincanuckistan]

“Its going to be either a complete Romney landslide (not likely), or a knife-edge victory for Obama or Romney.”

You’re just ruling out an Obama landslide. Way to cover your bases. :)

[jimsin]

HERE'S MY..rather numberless yet accurate prediction....

The Endlösung

ON NOV. 7TH MORNING RETURNS TO AMERICA: IN THE END, RIGHT TRIUMPHS

VICE PRESIDENT RYAN

[Chipper]

I am the same. I’m 350 or 275 Romney. Could go either way. For this thread I will go with 350.

[opticks]

R^2: 281, Oh-jeez: 257

Mainly got rid of the novelty advantage O had in 2008 in several states that voted for him, but were traditionally red states.

[realcleanguy]

If the elections by 3PM tomorrow start to lean heavily towards Romney, I predict riots will break out and Obama for security purposes with stop the election process until civil control can be restored, during which many of the voting records will have been destroyed.

Maybe

[ScottinVA]

The FR server goes nonfunctional by 10 a.m. tomorrow and comes back up 6 a.m. Wednesday unless the election is still in doubt.

As for the EVs... it’s going to be harrowingly close... either way. There’ll be no landslide.

[Wyrd bið ful aræd]

True. Its just so hard to predict :).

I'm going to take a deep breath and call this for Romney, narrowly.

I still think a Romney landslide isn't out of the question though!