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The Spectacle Blog
John Guardiano wonders if President Obama is poised to win re-election next year based on Larry Sabato’s latest analysis of the electoral map.
What is most interesting to me with regard to the electoral map are the states that Obama won in 2008 which were won by Bush in 2004 (Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, Indiana, Iowa, Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina and Florida). Demographic trends notwithstanding, I am not sure anyone can operate on the assumption that Obama will retain all of those states. One cannot also operate on the assumption that Obama will retain states that have voted Democratic in recent elections namely Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and especially Wisconsin.
Unseating an incumbent President is never an easy task especially when no primary challenger has come forward. But it won’t be an insurmountable one if the economy should regress or if another disaster (economic or otherwise) strikes and Obama isn’t equal to the task. Should that be the case it will only be a question of the American electorate feeling comfortable enough with the Republican candidate. Then again if Trump opts to run as an independent and splits the anti-Obama vote then all bets are off.
Still just viewing it from the perspective of an electoral map I think it comes down to those thirteen states.
View all comments (16) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by Aaron Goldstein
http://spectator.org/blog/2011/04/22/obama-the-electoral-map
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RJ| 4.22.11 @ 2:55AM
I see it pretty much the same way, but we can't underestimate the difficulty in beating Obama in 2012. The mainstream press probably will out-do their 2008 efforts to get him elected, which is a heavy burden for the GOP candidate to overcome. I also sense that for many people Obama is like JFK in that the image of how they want to see him overpowers the reality. Obama was elected on a biographical image and his poll numbers are much higher than he deserves. There are many people who, despite the troubles of the Obama administration, will not easily give up the image that they hold of Obama. For many, dreams are stronger than reality.
Zbigniew Mazurak | 4.22.11 @ 5:10AM
Of course! That's what I intended to post under Guardiano's post. Obama is no shoo-in for reelection, he's not invincible, and the EC map does not preclude a Republican victory.
Larry Sabato (an ignorant liberal professor) has not discovered anything new. Right now, the EC map doesn't look anyhow different from what it looked like in 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, or 2008. It has been the case during every presidential election campaign since 1992 that the Dems start the campaign with an EC map advantage. The hardcore base of 18 states plus DC which have voted for the Dems during every election post 1988 will have 242 EC votes next year, much more than the total vote clout of the Republican base.
But if Republicans win those 9 swing states which Aaron has mentioned - the 9 states which Bush won in 2004 and Obama won in 2008 - that is, VA, NC, FL, IN, OH, IA, NV, UT, and CO (or only the first 6) - they will win, because they will get the requisite number of EC votes (you need 270 to win).
Republicans will not even need to win all 9 of them - VA, NC, FL, IN, OH, and IA would be enough. But if Republicans win in all 9 of these swing states won by Obama in 2008, and also make trouble for Obama in PA and WI, Obama will inevitably be defeated, because his resources will be scattered between a large number of states.
Mark | 4.22.11 @ 10:40PM
I noticed exactly the same thing. In the brief time I've had today I couldn't conjure up an EC map from 2004, but was quite certain it was very close to this one. Clearly conventional wisdom favors an incumbent and Obama does have a good chance to win re-election. However, a solid Republican candidate will have an equally good chance, all things being equal. We're in a for a real wild and wooly campaign season and I can guarantee the level of nastiness will surpass anything we've seen in modern history.
beebop| 4.22.11 @ 5:42AM
Why does an incumbant need a BILLION DOLLARS to campaign for re-election? Because he has NO SUCCESSES insofar as the independents are concerned. Someone who had done even a fraction of what he said he would -- remembering that the dems had both houses in a virtual lock for the first two years of his unfortunate tenure -- and with the daily attention that the incumbant receives could get re-elected merely by running on those achievements. And. Especially because the lapdogs in the media capitols do everything but lick his boots. What the opposition needs to state -- simply and honestly -- over and over and over is that we can't afford to pay the INTEREST on our massive debt any longer, much less pay down any of the debt itself. The services a responsible government SHOULD perform are at peril because of the over-reaching nature of the concept of government as practiced by meddling democrats.
0bama should be called out for each and every lie he has uttered insofar as the Ryan budget and for every waiver he has issued for 0bamacare. Daily. Republicans should align themselves with using every scrap of media attention they get with a simple message and deliver it over and over and over until the rational among us GET IT.
l5j6| 4.22.11 @ 7:19AM
"economy should regress "? Ah, where has the economy really improved? It's still getting worse, except for the ruling class in the Beltway and it's attendent commentariat.
l5j6| 4.22.11 @ 7:21AM
It mainly has to do with whomever the MSM decides to support. If a candidate has the media cheerleading them, that candidate will likely win - in any election.
It's the marketing, stoopid.
martin j smith| 4.22.11 @ 7:33AM
I think that the economic conditions by about May or June of 2012 will be prim motivating factor in the 2012 election. In fact it will determine the election as long as the Republican Party has a passable candidate.--Wild cards will be any "thiurd party' candidate and a terrorist attack. As for Donald Trump: If he runs as a "so called independent" --I would lump him in with Obama as a Socialist-crony capitalist which I think he is. And also a sore loser which he is.
I do not believe that Trump would have the standing of Ross Perot and would not attract nearly as many voters. So in the blogosphere keep down grading Trump.
I would say this that Tea party and Conservatives should pressure the Republican Leadershit has hard as possible to insure a far more than just passable candidate.
Andrew Keirns| 4.22.11 @ 9:29AM
George Neumayr for President -- we need somebody to step out on to the campaign trail and point out that Obama's vision is refelcted in what we've experienced the last two years. We need someone to lead.
Bert| 4.22.11 @ 9:30AM
SO,Aaaron maybe you should ISSUE a WARNING about PHONY Leftist Larry !
The DNC and Team Barry called Comrade larry and requested one of his classic Dem party fantasy polls.
Larry is a Dem party HACK who predicted in 2004 that Bush's poll figures were so low it wasm impossible to be elected !
Larry the Dem party HACK who was secretly working for Sen Webb during the 2006 campaign and went on every single TV and radio show spreading Webb propaganda and SMEARS against his opponent until getting CAUGHT !
Larry is confirmed Leftist and LIAR and FRAUD !
Believe nothing he cooks up.
Bob K.| 4.22.11 @ 11:06AM
Well, you can probably write off PA. The Republicans are squandering their recent takeover of the State House, Senate and Governor's mansion by their refusal to take control of the problems arising with the Marcellus Shale Gas Industry and the Republicans will lose most of the Reagan Democrats they gained in the last election because of it. And this will hurt a redistricting that should favor Republicans.
The Republicans refuse to support an Extraction Tax on the Industry (which every other state with a gas industry has) to help alleviate the problems it is causing to the tax base in the rural area where the well drilling occurs. Roads are being destroyed and taxes will have to be raised locally to fix them. Streams and aquifers are threatened. Local schools have had a large increase in students from families that have moved in from out of state to work on the wells and taxes will have to be raised to handle that issue.
And to make matters worse the Republicans are doing nothing to lower the 9.9% corporate tax so the gas companies have incorporated in neighboring Delaware to avoid it. And to boot, pipelines are being constructed to transport the gas out of the state where it will be sold, likely to NYC and Europe.
It is no wonder the Republicans are called the Dumb Party!
Bo| 4.22.11 @ 11:08AM
I could see a strong GOP candidate being competitive in Wisconsin or Pennsylvania. I can't see it in Michigan or Minnesota. If the GOP won Minnesota they'd just recount it over to the Democrats, anyways.
gearjammer| 4.22.11 @ 11:34AM
If, I got the right odds I bet Obama loses New Hampshire, and maybe even Maine 1. The people in these states value jobs over welfare, and detest authoritative, know it all types.
Ed| 4.22.11 @ 11:37AM
On Wednesday, the NLRB (National Labor Relations Board) issued a decree that Boeing would have to close its North Charleston, SC 787 plant because Boeing was "anti-union". All 787 production will have to be done at its unionized plants in Washington State. This has only been covered in certain business news outlets, but Obama has declared economic war on the South. He can kiss FL, NC, and VA goodbye.
Bob| 4.22.11 @ 12:52PM
The only thing that is important when assessing a known political quantity such as Larry Sabato, is that he is an arrogant leftist, with his own political institute at the infallible University of Virginia, which as we all know, is the Harvard of the South. In other words, Larry lives on conventional political "wisdom," otherwise know as drivel. Larry was dragged kicking and screaming to the fact that there is a real thing called the Tea Party and to the fact that 2010 was going to be an historic ass-kicking of the Democratic Party.
Casey Abell| 4.22.11 @ 2:26PM
Happened to check this prediction from Sabato for the 2010 midterms, made on September 11, 2009 in Real Clear Politics:
"After examining all 435 House races for 2010, the Crystal Ball projects that Republicans will gain between 20 and 30 seats. While this is nothing to sneeze at, especially given that it would be the largest gain for congressional Republicans since 1994, it still puts them short of the 40 seat pick-up they need to take back the House."
Well, gee, Larry was only off by forty-some seats. Sure, this was more than a year before the midterms. But right now we're a year-and-a-half before the presidential election. So I tend to take Sabato's presidential prognostications with a barrel of salt.
MarkJ| 4.22.11 @ 7:45PM
Forget Larry "Brains" Sabato's map. Gas prices will determine who gets elected in November 2012. Ergo, if gas is at, say, $5+ a gallon on Election Day, Obama should start packing his trash for the long slog back to Hyde Park.