2012 Election Predictions

It’s that time of the year again - Election Predictions!

In 2004, I accurately predicted Bush would win and I got 49 states right. In 2008, I actually did slightly worse, getting 48 states right in Obama’s win that year (had MO and IN flipped). Will this be the election I get all 50 states right? Or be very wrong? Let’s see how it goes!

Let’s start with the main event - the Electoral College. I will have a state-by-state explanation for this at the end of all the predictions:

Electoral College

Barack Obama - 303
Mitt Romney - 235

(To see a map of what this Electoral College Projection looks like, click here)

Popular Vote
Barack Obama - 50.3%
Mitt Romney - 48.4%
Gary Johnson/Jill Stein/etc.  – 1.3%

Senate Winners (showing only competitive races)
Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) by 2%

Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) by 7%

Joe Donnelly (D-IN) by 1.5%

Chris Murphy (D-CT) by 4%

Tim Kaine (D-VA) by 3%

Claire McCaskill (D-MO) by 8%

Jon Tester (D-MT) by 0.5%

Deb Fischer (R-NE) by 6%

Rick Berg (R-ND) by 2%

Dean Heller (R-NV) by 2%

Jeff Flake (R-AZ) by 5%

Angus King (I-ME) by 10%

Result: Net 1 Seat Pickup for the Democrats

House of Representatives

Democrats should pick up a net of 2 to 10 House seats, but the Republicans will retain slim control of the chamber. Democrats need to win 25 seats in order to retake control. In regards to the competitive House races in Wisconsin in the 1^st and 7^th Congressional District, both Paul Ryan and Sean Duffy will be re-elected.

State-By-State Analysis

Ohio – Far and away the most important state in the country for the second time in 8 years. This was the state that re-elected President Bush in 2004 and is the state that likely holds the difference between the re-election of President Obama or the election of Mitt Romney. No Republican has ever won the presidency without winning Ohio since Lincoln. Unfortunately for Mitt Romney, there are several structural factors that are working against him in the state. Namely, the auto-bailout that President George W. Bush requested and Obama signed in the spring of 2009 that saved hundreds of thousands of jobs in Ohio and the upper Midwest. Romney opposed the autobailout and it’s evident that Ohioans never forgave him for that. Take a look at all the polls in the state going back to the beginning of September. Out of 55 polls taken in the state, Romney only leads in 5 of them.  That is a dominating trendline for President Obama. Also, pay attention to the graph in the past week, with Obama spiking heavily before election day. If Obama wins Ohio, the election is essentially over as there will be almost no other way for Romney to get 270 to win the election. WINNER: Barack Obama by 3%.

Wisconsin - The Republican Party felt that they had a strong shot at flipping the state after all the gains they made in the state since 2010 (notably the election of Sen. Ron Johnson and Governor Walker). The Romney campaign made a strong attempt to pick off WI from Obama by picking Rep. Paul Ryan as his vice president. Unfortunately, the attempt rested on some faulty assumptions. First of all, almost 500,000 voters that backed Obama in 2008 decided to sit out the 2010 (and recall) elections, but they will almost certainly cast votes in the 2012 election. Wisconsin is still a lean-Democratic state when it comes to presidential elections. Even when Obama was in a freefall in the days after the first debate, Romney never led in a single poll. In fact, Romney hasn't led in Wisconsin since August in the days after he picked Paul Ryan. That's zero out of 24 times. Combined with the fact that the state has always been at least 2 percent more Democratic than Ohio and Obama wins this easily. WINNER: Barack Obama by 4%.

North Carolina - This is one of the most intriguing of all of the battleground states. This was one of the closest states in 2008 and few pollsters thought Obama could actually take the state which he ultimately won by a tiny 0.3% margin. It hadn't gone for a Democrat since 1976 when Carter won it. It broke late for Obama in 2008 largely as a result of people fleeing into the Democratic Party as a result of the financial crisis. But due to shifting demographics, the emerging population boom that NC cities are experiencing, Obama won the 5 largest counties in the state which account for half of their population. In comparison, Bill Clinton only won 1 large county. Given high levels of support from affluent white professionals, blacks and college students, Obama has actually remained competitive in the state even though Romney is likely to outpace McCain tremendously in the rural counties and in Appalachia (which is Obama's single worst region in the country). Obama had managed to recapture his lead in NC during his late September peak, but as the race shifted more towards Romney, it became a lean-GOP state. Romney should most likely win the state but by the barest of margins as the nascent Obama base of support isn't strong enough to overcome Romney's astronomical margins in the rural counties. However, from a long term prospective, this development has to be concerning for the GOP because given shifts in the electorate, it means that by 2016 or 2020, North Carolina will likely be a light blue state. WINNER: Mitt Romney by 2%

Virginia - In 2008, Barack Obama became the first Democratic President to win the state since LBJ's landslide in 1964. This was largely due to the changing demographics in the state and a huge influx of Northern liberals to settle into the northern Virginia suburbs in the past few years. Virginia had the most stunning shift of any state, going from supporting George Bush by 8.2% in 2004 to supporting Obama by 6.3% in 2008, a shift of 15% in just 4 years. This year, demographic shifts have continued to play to the Democrats advantage which is why, even though Obama will do about 4-5% worse nationally than in 2008, he should still win Virginia by a small but durable margin. WINNER: Barack Obama by 2%.

Colorado - Like Virginia, Colorado is destined to be an incredibly close state. In fact, I have always thought that of all the so-called "swing states" or "battlegrounds," Colorado was the state that actually fit that definition. This is a state that has vacillated quite a bit over the last 20 years. Clinton won it in 1992 by 5 points, only for it to switch heavily over to the GOP during the 1996, 2000 and 2004 elections. Bush won it by 5 points in 2004 only for Obama to win in by 9 points in 2008. Colorado Springs is one of the national headquarters for the Evangelical movement in the country which is what fueled such strong support for President Bush during his two terms. CO has also experienced a large amount of Hispanic immigration over the years. Hispanics don't have inherent alliances to a particular political party, with Republicans and Democrats both having won majorities of them in recent elections. Bush won in 2004 by famously winning 44% of Hispanics. However, as the Republicans have taken a more nativist tone on immigration since about 2005, Hispanic support for the GOP has dropped off a cliff. McCain only won 31% of Hispanics in 2008 and Mitt Romney will likely win less than that. However, the state will be kept close due to the super charged nature of Colorado conservatives trying to unseat Barack Obama. WINNER: Barack Obama by 1%.

Florida - Longtime political junkies may remember Election Night 2000 quite well. Tim Russert on NBC with a whiteboard saying "Florida, Florida, Florida!" when it became clear that the entire election would ultimately hinge on a few hundred ballots and was ultimately decided by the Supreme Court a month later. Mercifully, once that fiasco was over, Florida decided to stay relatively quiet the next 2 elections. Bush won it by a much larger margin of 5 points in 2004 and Obama won it by 2.8% in 2008. This margin is important because Obama actually under-performed statewide relative to nationally by about 5%. This is why given that Romney will likely do 4-5% better than McCain, Florida has to be considered a true tossup. The polls in the state have been all over the place, some showing Obama up 2 and then Romney up 5. Given Florida's historical skeptical nature about Democrats and a close race, I think this has the potential to be the closest election of the night. Also, if I'm wrong about any state, I fully expect it to be Florida. WINNER: Mitt Romney by 1%

POSSIBLE SURPRISES

You can't provide political predictions without allowing for the possibility that in the close races, someone will pull off an upset. This year there are three possible surprise results. The Obama turnout machine could work better than expected and due to the low-propensity of Hispanics to actually vote, they could show up and Obama could manage to pick off Florida after all. Which would increase his electoral substantially to 332 to 206 electoral votes. There is also a possibility that Obama can lose Virginia if the margins are about 10% higher in the rural and moderate counties for Romney than they were for McCain in 2008.

Also, in the Senate races, Democrat Jon Tester could lose his re-election bid due to higher GOP margins in Montana/less Republicans willing to cross over and vote for him.

In the Nevada Senate race, pollsters have been horribly inaccurate in recent elections about predicting results there due to a large Hispanic population that slips through the cracks of likely voter screens that pollsters use. However, given the fact that Democrat Shelley Berkley is under ethics investigation, it seems like that Republican Dean Heller will win there regardless.