-
Who’s Politicizing Benghazi?
May 9, 2013 | 6 comments
-
A Tale of Two Teams and Two Stars
January 10, 2013 | 8 comments
-
Mitt Romney Just Got Himself Elected President
October 3, 2012 | 17 comments
-
Obama to Gays and Hollywood: Show Me the Money!
May 9, 2012 | 13 comments
-
Ruinous Obama Austerity
May 9, 2012 | 2 comments
The Spectacle Blog
Larry Sabato’s latest analysis of the electoral college map should give jubilant Republicans serious pause, because it suggests that, despite his manifest failures of leadership, Barack Obama is poised to win reelection. And, more ominously for the GOP, the Dems have what appears to be an increasing long-term electoral college lock.
Sabato counts 182 “safe” electoral votes for the Dems, with 14 “likely” and 51 “leaning” their way. That gives Obama 247 of the 270 electoral votes that he needs to win reelection. The comparable numbers for the GOP, by contrast, are 105 (safe), 65 (likely) and 10 (lean) for 180 electoral votes total.
Now, admittedly, it’s very early in the campaign season. A lot can and surely will happen between now and Nov. 6, 2012.
Moreover, as Sabato himself points out, if you do not include the lean states, but just the likely and safe states, the race is much more tightly contested: 196 Democratic electoral votes to 170 Republican electoral votes.
Still, it’s got to be disturbing to the GOP that even with the economy in the doldrums, unemployment at a sustained and near-record high, and a tsunami of debt set to explode, Obama remains the odds-on favorite to win reelection.
A big part of the problem is changing demographics, which clearly favor the Democrats. Sabato’s tossup states, for instance, include former GOP strongholds such as Virginia, North Carolina, Nevada, Colorado, and Florida.
What do all of these states have in common? Large Hispanic and immigrant populations, which tend to vote Democratic. Young people under age 30 also tend to be far more Democratic.
The good news is that Hispanic voting patters are likely to change and evolve over time, just as political allegiance of earlier American immigrant groups changed and evolved over time.
Young people, too, can and do change politically, depending upon their formative life experiences. If, for instance, young people continue to suffer a weak economy and poor employment prospects, then they likely will be more receptive to the GOP.
Another wildcard is voter turnout. Hispanics, immigrants and young people all tend to vote in far fewer numbers than older white voters.
This is significant because older white voters tend to be more Republican, which is one reason the GOP won big in 2010. In 2008, by contrast, Obama and the Dems benefited from a surge in both the Hispanic and youth votes.
But what if, in 2012, Hispanics and young people revert to type as they did in 2004? The Republican challenger might then squeak out a victory as George W. Bush did over John Kerry.
Still, the fact remains: The Republican Party needs to do a lot more political spadework in Hispanic and immigrant communities and on college campuses. The party’s political long-term survival depends on it.
View all comments (42) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by John R. Guardiano
http://spectator.org/blog/2011/04/21/is-obama-poised-to-win-reelect
Follow us:
ADVERTISEMENT
The Spectacle Blog
Former IRS Commissioner Refused to Say That Targeting Conservative Groups is Wrong
Benjamin Brophy | 2:27PM
SPONSORED LINKS
FLASHBACK TO: 1995
-
Pope Culture
A man of faith in a godless age is hitting Americans where it hurts.
-
Why the GOP Does Not, Like, Totally Suck
Mr. and Mrs. American Spectator Reader, let P.J. O’Rourke talk sense to your kids.
-
Dames at Sea
-
In the Absence of Guns
In Britain, defending your property can get you life.
-
The Metaphysical Martini
-
Counting the Costs of Clintonism
The debacle of this president’s administration is both a cause and a symptom of the decline of American values. Unless Congress impeaches him, that decline will go on unchecked. An eminent jurist surveys the damage and assesses the chances for the recovery of our culture.
-
Chuck McHagel
It won’t take long for conservatives to scratch this presidential wannabe off their 2008 scorecard.
-
The Legacy of Old John and Mother Fresh-Roasted
-
It’s the Best Time of the Year
The American Christmas, like the songs that celebrate it, makes room for everybody under the rainbow. Is that why so many people seem to be hostile to it?
-
The Bush Crack-Up
Was the President done in by the economy, or by the politics of the economy?
Clip of the Day
ADVERTISEMENT
CalMark| 4.21.11 @ 6:18PM
More despair and hopelessness.
Let's stop handing Obama the 2012 election before we even run it, OK? Despite all your caveats, that's what you're doing. It's shameful sensationalism.
Quartermaster| 4.21.11 @ 6:23PM
The Grand Old Stupid Party has better be standing for the rule of law as well. So far their record is just a bit spotty when it comes to illegal immigration, which is what is spelling long term doom for the GOP and the country.
Birdie| 4.21.11 @ 6:43PM
Another useless post.
Michael | 4.21.11 @ 6:24PM
Sabato is a known water carrier for the Dems. He completely ignores the November 2010 election. Why do you give him creedence? What is weong with you?
Brooke| 4.21.11 @ 6:35PM
Sabato is a hack. No way will the Bamster be re-elected if gas is $5 a gallon.
Sheila| 4.21.11 @ 6:37PM
I think he'll win easily. Just as the GOP will really, truly cut spending this time, honest - the tea party told me so. Too many left liberals and right liberals still believe their vote counts and this is still a constitutional republic. Decline and fall.
simon templar| 4.21.11 @ 7:07PM
How is he going to do this? He has lost the independents. Remember the same experts told us that without them you can not win.
Brooke| 4.21.11 @ 7:54PM
Sheila and QMaster are both "all is lost" Repub Eeyores.
Bill| 4.21.11 @ 6:42PM
Who are these "jubilant" Republicans? I don't know of any. I see a lot of piss-poor pessimistic, Stupid Party Repubs, but there's not a happy one in the bunch. We're doomed, doomed I tell 'ya!!
Ken (Old Texican)| 4.21.11 @ 7:03PM
Mr. Guardino,
if you are right, then our republic is toast. If you are just trying to "goose us", then you should be ashamed.
If the "poverts" outnumber us on election day 2012, then America "starts over" and the poverts have nothing.
I will recite the words of a country song: "You can take this job and shove it. I ain't working here no more!"
That reality can take many forms; sit down strikes, massive black-market economy, massive tax revolt backed by a hundred million shotguns, massive civil disobedience to name a few.
No sir!
A hundred million hard working Americans will not be slapped into slavery to slackers and "poverts".
Bet your last dollar on it!
simon templar| 4.21.11 @ 7:03PM
Why are you peddling this bullshit? The guy has lost the independents and now only holds 36 percent of them. Did you notice what happened in the last election? JRG, why don't we just give it to him now and SAVE ALL THE EFFORT AND MONEY? Is there something in your beltway pundit DNA that just can not stop bending over and capitulating?
Bob Grant| 4.21.11 @ 9:50PM
It's because of the quality - or lack of - in the republican field.
The writer might be surprised how many supporters who voted for him in '08 will either sit out the election of actually vote against him because of the ever-shrinking standard of living, inflation, and chronic high fuel prices. Average middle class Obama '08 supporters might have a different attitude about him when he alone has decimated their standard of living.
Will they really buy into the hopey-changey thing as before. I think you might be surprised.
Floyd Looney | 4.21.11 @ 7:10PM
Many people really believe what they see on TV, and TV is in the tank for Obama
MIkeN| 4.21.11 @ 7:19PM
Sabato rates Virginia, North Carolina, Ohio, Florida, and Indiana as tossups. These states should all be in the lean Republican category with Missouri, and maybe Indiana a step beyond. That brings Republicans to 266. Why should a narrow victory in Missouri count that much more than razor thin loss in North Carolina?
That said, it is disturbing how Democrats can get to 350-360 electoral votes, and for Republicans it would be a struggle to get to 300.
Occam's Tool| 4.21.11 @ 7:29PM
The Bammer did not significantly beat the most feeble Republican Candidate since Gerald Ford lost to Jimmy Carter (yeeps!).
What John "Reinforce the Oval Office Floor" Bolton would do to him would be beautiful to watch, not to mention what a real dynamo like Allen West would do to him. With $5.00 gas and the economy in ruins, The Bamster will be doomed. Just repeat: "Are you better off than you were four years ago?"
Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 4.21.11 @ 8:12PM
This analysis needs an anaylysis.
Barack Obama won by about 9 million votes.
12 million blacks and 12 million Hispanics voted for Obama.
The youth vote may have been in there but Obama has a tough way to go because all those pissed off voters in the rust belt who voted for him and Florida may not be on board this time. If he loses Florida and just one of those states he's in real trouble.
Bob Grant| 4.21.11 @ 9:56PM
I just don't think he can buy off all of those who voted for him in '08. There will be millions of middle class people who are left "exposed" i.e. they aren't collecting a check, don't work for the government, and don't have some sweet government retirement package. They've been employed in the private sector so they are left exposed. Obama can't save those people. Do you really they are all that jazzed about re-electing him? I say no. We certainly agree he will not pickup any votes.
Spicy Joker| 4.21.11 @ 8:31PM
"The good news is that Hispanic voting patters are likely to change and evolve over time, just as political allegiance of earlier American immigrant groups changed and evolved over time."
What bullshit. You and other Repubics are in denial. The GOP has planted the seeds of its own destruction with its policy of open-borders anarchy. The notion that millions of Third World immigrants, who depend on public schools, Medicaid, and food stamps, are going to vote Republican is a joke.
Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 4.22.11 @ 5:00AM
Good one!
James in LA| 4.21.11 @ 8:35PM
So, all the President needs to carry is FL and game over. Thanks to the Send In The Hounds approach to senior care, the GOP is going to have to spend a LOT of resources in FL. He will likely take Colorado as well. The rest depends on typical campaign attrition. But the GOP path is through the eye of a needle, whereas the President has a lot of pieces in play.
I would love to see a return to the 50 state strategy. It will if a third party emerges.
Teflon93| 4.21.11 @ 8:52PM
Requiring ID at the polling place will eliminate most of this problem.
JASmius | 4.21.11 @ 9:08PM
It depends entirely on the challenger the GOP nominates. If traditional form holds and the nominee is who's next in line, it'll be Romney and Obama will win. If the mold can be broken and we go with, say, Tim Pawlenty, Obama will be in serious trouble, and anything but an "odds-on favorite," since it can be taken for granted that the economy will still be in the toilet.
Canon| 4.21.11 @ 9:14PM
Why you think Pawlenty breaks the mold is beyond me. He's just another Republican snore.
James in LA| 4.21.11 @ 9:45PM
T-Paw would not carry his own state, and the electoral map would otherwise remain unchanged. He is to the right of Romney, read, not nationally electable.
heroica2| 4.21.11 @ 9:35PM
To those who say that the 2010 election is a sign of great things in 2012, I can only say that people said the same thing in 1994.
This race will be won or lost on its own terms. It won't be easy. It's not easy to unseat presidents.
It's doable. No reason to be gloomy. But anyone who thinks it will be easy is doomed to disappointment.
Canon| 4.21.11 @ 10:25PM
Who are these mythical over-confident Republicans of whom you speak?
axbucxdu| 4.21.11 @ 10:49PM
Does anybody really know what time it is? Does anybody really care?
Here's the problem: Most of the chiseling Rethugs with the will to power are going to keep their powder dry until 2016. Ergo, it's hand me downs this cycle, unless...white knights and their unicorns do more than play for Arsenal .
Therefore, the fault tolerant strategy must be to elect many more fiscal conservatives to congress. Stack the decks and even if the resident alien-in-chief is elected, he and his henchmen would be Trumped.
Anthony| 4.21.11 @ 10:59PM
If the reublican candidate plays by marquis of queensbury like McCain, we lose. When McCain said he thought Obama would be a fine president, it was all over. We need a tough guy who's willing to get down in the mud and fight like he wants to win. Think Bush1 and willie horton or Nixon and the southern strategy. If we get a nice gentleman who talks about getting rid of medicare and cutting taxes on the rich, Obama gets his caliphate.
Canon| 4.22.11 @ 2:32AM
The only tough Republican guy I've seen is a girl.
Clint| 4.22.11 @ 12:01AM
We are in a Media War. The Mainstream Media "Sold " Obama to the voters & will attempt to prop him up again for re-election.
This is The" Let's Fool The Sucker Voters again." Campaign.
It's up to The Alternative Media & the dynamics of The Tea Party to carry out The Tea Party Second Wave in The 2012 Primaries & then ramp up for The 2012 General Elections.
If The GOP Ruling Elite Fops attempt to back A Candidate unacceptable to We Tea Party Patriots, then Obama will have an easier path to Re-election.
McCain should be a lesson, but They ain't called The Stupid Party for nothin'.
martin j smith| 4.22.11 @ 7:41AM
Larry Sabato is often on Fox news as an "authority" who I do not necessarily is such a genious. For example--how does he factor the state of the 'economy" say 6 mos before the election and how people will respond when they vote ? But more importantly there is this:
There are people who have posted articles that show me that they really do not "get" what has to be done to defeat Obama. They are "in bed" with the Republican Leadership who I believe re currupt and also incompetent.( these are not mutually exclusive btw ). This is for me is the second or tied for first as the most important factor in the 2012 election. Its true the Republicans could win or lose no matter what they did but if the economy continues on the present course and they chose a good candidate ( not necessarily "great" or"excellent" ) and the economy is in the tank I frankly do not think they can lose.
But the could lose with losers such as Boehner and McConnell doing what they have been doing even with the economy in the tank.
s bennett| 4.22.11 @ 8:41AM
Herman Cain and Bill Ryan in 2012 pass it on!!
Michael L. Hauschild| 4.22.11 @ 9:22AM
It will not matter who wins the next election. The electorate will be serfs under either administration. There will be more regulation, more bureaucrats, and more taxation capable agencies either way. All the trends exhibited by both parties show, bigger government, more taxes, and total disregard for the functionally employed public. If there is not a complete purge of the government as it exists and a return to a Constitutional Republic the tipping point has already been reached.
Many of our citizens, were it not for entitlements or handouts, would live in textbook third world poverty; these people are incapable of anything but their “status quo” preserving franchise, they have no ability or desire to enter the economy and instead rely on “entitlements.” They are approaching an electoral majority.
This realization of collapse has finally trickled down even to the welfare level. The hope and change of their champion did not come with the warning label “Hard Work Required.” Fifty years of progressive promises are for naught, reducing everyone to their existence is all that remains, having sucked the system dry even for those who are productive.
This is the first year that I had to resort to my savings to pay my property and income taxes. The government now takes more than I make. I am sure that many of you, if not in my predicament, are approaching that stage. My “nest egg” is now financing the welfare state; my property has become potential income, not for its ability to create revenue, but as a capital gain taxed at forty percent.
There are some very difficult times ahead. Seemingly the only choices we are offered are laid out by the very people, the party structure, the pundits, and the MSM that have delivered us into this fiasco. They have a proven historical context of political malfeasance, a self preservationist agenda, and outright distortional slant. The Constitution, a democratic Republic, and most of the Tea Party Contract are so foreign or unconceivable that they actually scoff at the patriotism of a concerned electorate.
We need to draw the line now.
martin j smith| 4.22.11 @ 10:01AM
Never the less my feeling is this: Watch out for sabateurs as in SABATINO and others. Rome was not built in a day and it will take time. But here is what I would suggest: An election strategic group of Tea Party and like minded citizens specifically for two major purposes: To monitor the Republican nominating process and organize opposition to a candidate deemed "unfit" and in addition, to organize a "get out the vote drive and to prevent voter fraud in case we are stuck with a
less than agreeable choice. The main goal is only one : Defeat OBAMA --and that would be the case even if our "choice" was DONALD DUCK.
Burt| 4.22.11 @ 10:06AM
Gee , a BS poll from the Dem party activist pollster Comrade Larry.
We are suppposed to believe the DNC BS cooked up by the Fraud who SECRETLY was working for WEBB in 2006 and made the rounds spreading his smears to every media network before getting CAUGHT !
The same Larry who declared his figures showed that GW BUSH was going to lose !
This Larry fantasy map has such ridiculous whoppers as IN,FL ,and OH are lean Dem and Texas is only lean GOP!
In your dreams Lefty Larry !
I suspect the Soro puppet is in such serious trouble the DNC will have Larry spreading their BS overtime for the next year and half.
martin j smith| 4.22.11 @ 10:16AM
Yes--I would re-iterate Bert's point--even among mainline Repubs--I think as in 2010 but even more so now a Conservative Tea Party alliance to defeat Obama should be the main goal . I would also hope that the minds of leaders in these groups are thinking strategcially to combat Socialist propaganda. But on this blog as a tiny first step lets ask the person writing THIS PARTICULAR POST; WHAT IS YOUR POINT ?
Uli Kunkel| 4.22.11 @ 12:57PM
If Obuckethead wins in 2012, it's over folks...
Seems the punditry is hell-bent on telling the citizens Obonehead is a foregone conclusion, no room for reasoned opposition, just give-in to a stacked Supreme Court and the inevitable Marxist hoard.
Who for an instant thinks he's addressing the nations problems; Gasoline is skyrocketing along with food prices; he thinks a protracted do-nothing (Just kill Whackdaffy, okay) incursion into Libya is somehow beneficial; thinks allowing unions to run this country is a winner... He's nuts and need to be expunged!!!
If he wins re-election what will this give us, but a jug-eared jackwagon who hates America, who thinks his office needs a space-age phone system with colored buttons and a TV that pops-up from his game-room coffee table!!!
Obuckethead doesn't care about this country, he's a disgraceful, community organizing, jive pymp!!!
MikeN| 4.22.11 @ 8:36PM
George Bush ran against a candidate who flipflopped on the war, and was so elitist he had his lunch brought to him from outside after a photo-op at Wendys, and was as liberal as Mike Dukakis, including opposition to the death penalty, and still Bush won by only one state.
Red Phillips | 4.25.11 @ 4:28PM
"A big part of the problem is changing demographics, which clearly favor the Democrats."
This is why restricting immigration, both illegal AND legal, has to be priority #1 for Republicans. Their ability to win a national election will be off the table within a couple of decades if current demographic trends continue. Republicans who want to grant amnesty, increase legal immigration, etc. either can't do simple math or are fine with facilitating their party's political suicide.
Red Phillips | 4.25.11 @ 4:40PM
"The good news is that Hispanic voting patters are likely to change and evolve over time, just as political allegiance of earlier American immigrant groups changed and evolved over time."
What is the evidence for this so far? Most "Hispanics" (a hopelessly imprecise term) who vote for Republicans now are multi-generational residents and ethnics groups, such as Cubans, who have historically supported Republicans. So this may be true as new Hispanic immigrants assimilate, but the trends are actually in the other direction. Younger Cubans, for example, are less likely to vote Republican than their parents. Recent Asian immigrants, long thought to be natural Republican voters, are increasingly voting for Democrats. And it is not necessarily true that Hispanics can be compared to Irish, Italian, Eastern European, etc. immigrants who assimilated and Americanized over time. Are Haitian immigrants likely to drift Republican as time goes on? So why do we think current Hispanic immigrants will behave like Italians and not like Haitians?
Connor| 4.26.11 @ 3:39PM
Because Hispanics are strongly oriented toward the family and Marxist Democrats are anathema to their values.
ABC123| 5.22.11 @ 10:02PM
John Guardino writes: "A big part of the problem is changing demographics, which clearly favor the Democrats. Sabato's tossup states, for instance, include former GOP strongholds such as Virginia, North Carolina, Nevada, Colorado, and Florida."
If the Republicans win back the White House in 2012, the fact only states that were in President Obama's 2008 column is very encouraging … to the GOP.
If the 2012 presidential election results in re-election for Obama, expect toss-up to emerge with at least the following three: Missouri, Montana, and Georgia. These states held for John McCain by 0.13%, 2.38%, and 5.20%.