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Handicapping the Presidential Race: May 1 snapshot....

ncsportsnut1

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Not exactly where I thought the race would be at this point. Romney is doing better earlier than expected. Most people, including myself, expected majority of polls to show Romney 5 points down at this point given the negativity of the primary season. If it had dragged on into June, still think would have hurt Romney more.

The President, after dismal approval ratings last fall, has stopped the freefall and approval numbers have improved slowly to a place where a case can be made he will be re-elected. A couple of the unanswered questions for his re-election at this point: Will his base, including blacks and younger voters, be as enthusiastic in 2012 as they were in 2008? Younger voters tend to be notoriously unreliable from one election to the next. The black voters have their own complaints with Obama, and while they will not vote for Romney, the question is what % of black voter turnout can be expected compared to 2008?

A lot of talk about Latino voters, but keep in mind the polling approval #s and other national polls are counting Latino voters too. Their support is already accounted for in those polls. Of course, their impact will be felt more in certain swing states, so will there be a huge turnout of Latino voters and will they vote in mass for Obama? Does Romney have opportunities there to increase support among Latino voters and cut into the Obama advantage there? I think he will try to do that, so will he be successful?

Obama has an equally large deficit with white male voters. It's not talked about as much as the Latino deficit etc., but white males make up a constituency as well and Obama has issues there.

Both Romney and Obama will have plenty of money from various sources and money won't end up being a deciding factor.

Romney faces Electoral College challenges. I think he probably needs to get to 52% of the popular vote to guarantee victory.

And lastly, as most would agree I think, it's all about the economy and the healthcare bill as it relates to economic freedom and the debt. If it does well in the 2nd quarter and seems to be swinging upwards, advantage Obama. If 2nd quarter #s aren't good, 3rd quarter improvements will be too late to help Obama.

Should be a great election for all of us political junkies!!


Obama Job Approval (Monthly)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date % Approve
01/20-31/2009 66
02/1-28/2009 64
03/1-31/2009 62
04/1-30/2009 63
05/1-31/2009 65
06/1-30/2009 61
07/1-31/2009 57
08/1-31/2009 53
09/1-30/2009 52
10/1-31/2009 53
11/1-30/2009 51
12/1-31/2009 50
01/1-31/2010 49
02/1-28/2010 50
03/1-31/2010 49
04/1-30/2010 48
05/1-31/2010 48
06/1-30/2010 46
07/1-31/2010 46
08/1-31/2010 44
09/1-30/2010 45
10/1-31/2010 45
11/1-30/2010 45
12/1-31/2010 46
01/1-31/2011 49
02/1-28/2011 47
03/1-31/2011 47
04/1-30/2011 44
05/1-31/2011 50
06/1-30/2011 46
07/1-31/2011 44
08/1-31/2011 41
09/1-30/2011 41
10/1-31/2011 41
11/1-30/2011 43
12/1-31/2011 43
01/1-31/2012 45
02/1-29/2012 45
03/1-31/2012 46
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
SOURCE: http://www.gallup.com/
Copyright (c) 2012 Gallup Inc. All rights reserved.
 
It's all about the math.

Romney can't is the demographic numbers stay anything like they are today:

Behind 95-5 with blacks
Down 12-15% with women
Down 40+% with Hispanics
Down 35%+ with people under 30

You can talk about general pols all you like. When every poll shows these types of numbers with the demographic groups, the general numbers have far less meaning.

This election will be remembered for gross Romney's SuperPACs are going to get and dishonest he is going to be about his relationship with them.
 
rj - Romney does very well among the people who typically turn out in huge numbers for elections: old white people. For those demographic differences to come into play, voter turnout needs to be pretty big among those groups.
 
It's all about the math.

Romney can't is the demographic numbers stay anything like they are today:

Behind 95-5 with blacks
Down 12-15% with women
Down 40+% with Hispanics
Down 35%+ with people under 30

You can talk about general pols all you like. When every poll shows these types of numbers with the demographic groups, the general numbers have far less meaning.

This election will be remembered for gross Romney's SuperPACs are going to get and dishonest he is going to be about his relationship with them.

You're a piece of work. You're already writing the history for something that hasn't happened yet? Now you can see the future...amazing.
 
And look... someone besides rj all of a sudden made the thread about rj. Shocker.
 
BBD as the election gets into the swing, Romney's support (well at least until he changes his mind) of Ryan's killing Medicare as we know it will become a critical issue among old white people.

As the ad wars get into full mojo in September, hearing over and over and over again - Elect Romney and seniors will pay $6000 more per year for their Medicare."

Hell, he can even use AARP's total opposition of the Ryan/Romney plan. That's how it should be portrayed.

That's what the CBO says will happen. If Pouffe has a brain in his head, Obama should beat Romney with seniors.
 
Color me skeptical that old white people will turn to Obama in droves because of that.
 
Obama can pump all the ads he wants regarding Romney and the Ryan plan, and he still isn't going to carry that demographic.

That being said, unless something dramatically changes in the next few months, I'm having a hard time seeing Obama with less than 300 EVs.
 
BBD/Eaglez, I completely disagree. If seniors are convinced they will have to $6000/year more than they do now for their healthcare and that they will have to buy private insurance, Obama will carry them. He will win OH and FL by 5+.

I'm not saying the Dems will succeed in doing this message, but if there was a SuperPAC spending $50-150M just on this issue, Obama wins seniors.

Medicare is the #1 issue with this group even more than abortion is with evangelicals.
 
2004 & 2008 Voter Demographics

It's all about the math.

Romney can't is the demographic numbers stay anything like they are today:

Behind 95-5 with blacks
Down 12-15% with women
Down 40+% with Hispanics
Down 35%+ with people under 30

You can talk about general pols all you like. When every poll shows these types of numbers with the demographic groups, the general numbers have far less meaning.

This election will be remembered for gross Romney's SuperPACs are going to get and dishonest he is going to be about his relationship with them.


Paragraph from Pew article showing voter demographics from 2004 & 2008:

Overall, whites2 made up 76.3% of the record 131 million people3 who voted in November's presidential election, while blacks made up 12.1%, Hispanics 7.4% and Asians 2.5%.4 The white share is the lowest ever, yet is still higher than the 65.8% white share of the total U.S. population.

The reason Romney can win without much support from black voters or some other groups is because white voters are still the vast majority of likely voters in the country. Here is the Pew Research comparing voter demographic groups overall, and a comparison of 2004 and 2008. The Hispanic vote as we all know is growing consistently. The black vote jumped almost 5% in 2008 compared to 2004, and there is where I think the President will be hard pressed to get the same black voter turnout as in 2008. Black unemployment is sky high and they had unrealistic expectations of how an Obama presidency would help them. If their voter participation numbers fall back to 2008, and young voters fall back to normal patterns, it's not hard to see Romney winning 52-48.

Hope you enjoy the demographics. There are a lot of nuggets in there.

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=..._anlDg&usg=AFQjCNGCZMCaw82SeTKagKgTOfOZGXHYdg
 
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sports, you aren't looking at the entire list. There is NO way (well other than if GOP State Legislatures make it illegal for people of color and women to vote) that Romney gets 52%. It's not possible.

Obama won under 30s by 2-1 in 2008 and those numbers haven't changed.

Obama is ahead with women (the majority of all voters) by 12-19%. This alone makes it impossible for Romney to get to the numbers you think are possible.
 
Obama isn't going to have young people or black people turn out in droves like they did in 2008. Obama has a very slim chance of carrying NC imo and he has almost no chance in Virginia.

This turns the focus to the three states BKF pointed out which Romney will need to win to capture the election. I'm interested to see what Romney's numbers get to once the Convention is over and he's the "actual" nominee (even though things are all but over now).

I think this one will be a relatively close election with Obama getting around 300 EV's
 
The number of people under 30 that will vote in 2012 is substantially lower than 2008...as in a considerable considerable amount.

Let's say it goes down to 10M votes. That's still 3.3M votes Romney has to pick up from somewhere.

Even if the total of black and Hispanic votes is only 20M , he'd be down at least 16-17M.

Let's say there are another 100M white votes.

If the bottom falls out and Obama only wins 55-45 from the women, he would add another 2.5M+.

Romney would need to win white men by 22-25M to tie. That's a 70-75% share of white men if you assume that Obama does worse than expected with all the other groups.

It's just not realistic to think Romney has a shot.
 
I disagree. I think a lot all the money going into politics will do more to turn people against the process and desensitize people to anything that really matters in politics. There will be so many lies and distortions on the airways that people will stop caring.
 
I disagree. I think a lot all the money going into politics will do more to turn people against the process and desensitize people to anything that really matters in politics. There will be so many lies and distortions on the airways that people will stop caring.

Tend to agree with PHdeac on this. In fact, a lot of the money spent and ads run by both parties and their surrogate groups are designed to discourage their opponents supporters in key demographics and to suppress their supporters' voter turnout. Kind of awkward wording but you get the gist. It's officially part of their strategies and playbooks since at least the 1988 election.
 
sports do you think women will stay home when the Violence Against Women Act had 32 no votes versus zero the last two times?

Do you think women will forget that the way Romney wants to pay for keeping student loan insurance low is to defund women's healthcare to the tune of $5B/year?

Do you think women will forget that Romney would not have signed the Lily Ledbetter Law?

Do you think women will forget Romney said their kids should go to lesser colleges just because mommy and daddy aren't rich?

It's not possible to win if you lose blacks by 90%, 30< by 2-1, Hispanic by 3-1 and women. It's simple math.

It's great to see your spirit, but you aren't being realistic.

PS- Looks for 10s of millions to spent telling seniors that "Elect Romney and you will pay $6000 more per year for Medicare."
 
sports do you think women will stay home when the Violence Against Women Act had 32 no votes versus zero the last two times?

Do you think women will forget that the way Romney wants to pay for keeping student loan insurance low is to defund women's healthcare to the tune of $5B/year?

Do you think women will forget that Romney would not have signed the Lily Ledbetter Law?

Do you think women will forget Romney said their kids should go to lesser colleges just because mommy and daddy aren't rich?

It's not possible to win if you lose blacks by 90%, 30< by 2-1, Hispanic by 3-1 and women. It's simple math.

It's great to see your spirit, but you aren't being realistic.

PS- Looks for 10s of millions to spent telling seniors that "Elect Romney and you will pay $6000 more per year for Medicare."

ok RJ I will take your persistent baiting. You make a LOT of assumptions about how women feel about things and how they will decide who is best to lead the country when they vote this fall. In 2010 Republicans/conservatives/Tea Party candidates received more female votes than the other side. In 2008, the majority of women voted Dem/Lib. My personal perception is that the women vote will split, or vote a slight edge to Romney this go round. Romney presents female voters with a positive choice, despite your comments, and I believe he will do well with women voters who care about family, the economy, the deficit, etc. So, guess we will see with the exit polling lol. Have a good night RJ.
 
I say yes to all of RJ's questions. I also think everyone will forget about the economy by then, It's not a big deal anyway, especially with Europe roaring back and NK and Iran acting super stable.
 
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