1) All the votes aren't in
And probably because:
2) In SOME non-competitive obvious Blue or Red States without competitive Senate or Governor races as well, because of the greater understanding and prominence of polling these days, people just stayed home since their votes didn't matter.
You may now proceed to shoot the messenger.
MI, MN, WI were not battleground states.
Here is a brief summary of just how well Mitt Romney did in shifting voters toward him in 2012 versus what took place in 2008:
Barack Obama netted FEWER Democrat votes in 2012 than were cast in 2008 by 3% points.
Mitt Romney earned MORE Republican votes in 2012 than were cast in 2008 by 3% points.
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Barack Obama earned FEWER Black votes in 2012 than he did in 2008.
Mitt Romney by the way, earned MORE Black votes in 2012 than were cast for the Republican in 2008.
Mitt Romney earned MORE votes from both married men and married woman than were cast for Republicans in 2008, while also improving support among non-married men and woman by 2% from 2008 as well.
Mitt Romney earned MORE votes among liberals, moderates, and conservatives than were cast for the Republican candidate in 2008 – in fact, this improvement was by a full 7% over 2008 – a very significant improvement.
Mitt Romney earned more votes from Protestants, Catholics, and Jews than the Republican nominee received in 2008, including a 9-point improvement among Jewish voters alone.
The two top issues according to voters were the economy and the budget. Mitt Romney earned A 38 POINT ADVANTAGE OVER BARACK OBAMA on the top two issues of the election – and yet Romney was somehow defeated.
Lastly, regarding the following three personal trait issues – strong leader, shares my values, and has a vision for the future, Mitt Romney DOMINATED Barack Obama among 2012 voters by 45 points. And lost the election.
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Here is the link to the data via the Washington Post. It is stunning, some might even say inconceivable, that a candidate improves in such categories as overall votes among Whites AND minorities, is ranked far ahead of their opponent in both the top two concerns among voters, as well as the three most important personal trait issues – and still loses the election.
That is exactly what happened last night. Somehow, someway…that is what happened to Mitt Romney – and to all who supported him.
See link below – and the dramatic shift in Republicans’ favor in 2012 vs 2008. A shift the resulted in a confounding loss that remains dubious at best…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/2012-exit-polls/
Thanks, and yeah, Freepers are a little frantic today...
Obama spent the last four years, while Harry Reid was running the government, building his reelection ground game.
I am glad to hear this.
Good to know. However, given R/R’s huge advantage in fundraising over McCain, the difference should have been much higher. Especially with the SuperPacs.
There are some people posting incomplete turnout information in an effort to make a case for Palin. There isn’t one. While completely unfair, at this point Palin is just too divisive - too many women dislike her and the media has had too long to turn her into something of a joke outside of GOP circles.
Palin is not going to join some dopey 3rd party and she isn’t likely to run for President. Folks should really let that bit of silliness go right now. She is doing a good job as an analyst on Fox News, and I suspect that is what she will continue doing.
It seems the turnout model ran smack dab into electoral reality.
They had a four year head start. You know that their organization OFA had permanent offices in Ohio, Florida and here in VA and in NC (to a lesser extent). They had people on the ground setting the stage for this election starting in early 2009. All those OFA people were getting paid by Soros money and some were even getting local college and high schools to give credit for kids coming to “intern”.
These people live a breath this stuff and we only concern ourselves when elections come around.
They have been polling and walking the streets asking questions for over four years. There is no way you can defeat that with a six month presence, just none.
Right on schedule.
I don’t understand turnout was higher ...Ohio for example Mcain got 2,677,820 votes, Obama got 2,940,044
Romney got 2,586,467 votes, Obama got 2,686,609
even if all votes aren’t in in Ohio,( they seem to be, including the absentee) just not certified. I’m having a tough time doing the math where Romney turnout is 7.3% higher.
Please help.
Speaking of Turnout, I just did a quick lookup of the Obama vs McCain popular vote as compared to the Obama vs Romney Popular vote and here is what I see:
Election 2008
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2008
2008: Obama: 69,456,897 McCain: 59,934,814
TOTAL VOTES CAST: 129,391,711
Obama Victory Margin: 52.9% to 45.7% (9,522,083 votes)
Obama: 365 EV McCain: 173 EV
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Election 2012
Source:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/elections/2012-election-results
2012: Obama: 60,652,149 Romney: 57,810,390
TOTAL VOTES CAST: 118,462,539 (2,841,759 votes)
Obama Victory Margin: 51.2% to 48.8%
Assuming Obama takes Florida (which as of this writing is still uncalled)...
Obama: 332 EV Romney: 206 EV
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What I find interesting are the following:
1) There were more people who voted in 2008 compared to 2012.
2) McCain got MORE votes in 2008 than Romney in 2012. In fact, McCain got 2,124,424 MORE VOTES than Romney !!
QUESTION : WHAT HAPPENED TO THOSE 2,124,424 McCAIN VOTES IN 2012?
3) Obama LOST OVER 8,804,748 Votes in 2012 compared to 2008!!
QUESTION: What happened to those 8,804,748 voters? Did they stay home?
I can only conclude the following, based on the above observations:
* There was LESS ENTHUSIASM by Americans to vote in 2012 than in 2008.
* Contrary to what we were led to believe by the GOP and what some FReepers claim they saw on the ground in their state, REPUBLICANS WERE NOT ENTHUSIASTIC TO VOTE THIS YEAR. In fact, I can see at least 2 Million of them staying home this year compared to 2008 based on the above numbers.
So much for the huge Get Out the Vote Effort, the huge, sellout crowds in Red Rocks Colorado and in Ohio...
* Even though Obama lost over 8 Million votes this year, most of those voters DID NOT switch to Romney, preferring to stay home ( I suspect many of these would be the disappointed youth of 2008 and the socially conservative blacks of 2008. The former still can’t find good jobs and the latter couldn’t vote for a gay marriage supporting candidate. However, they still could not vote for Romney. So, they stayed home ).
Also, I cannot help but conclude that a huge proportion of the GOP base STAYED HOME in 2012. Otherwise, where were the over 2 million votes that went to McCain in 2008?
This was a self-inflicted loss on the part of the Republicans.
The problem is demographic. Obama and the Dems are cleaning up in the 19 to 29 vote and the 30-44 vote, which comprised about 46% of the total vote. Romney won the age groups above 45 but not by the same margins. The GOP has a youth problem. We are not replacing our ranks as the old folks like me die out.