I've got Obama at 272 and Romney at 266. It all comes down to Ohio. Obama still leads in Ohio in most polls but Romney has some steam and is drawing huge crowds. I'm giving Romney WI, FL, NC, VA. Romney takes Ohio, he wins the presidency.
Popular vote I suppose would be 51.0% Obama and 47.5% for Romney with 1.5% going to minor party candidates.
I agree pretty much except that I see VA going to Obama.
WI, FL, and NC no way.
One of the wildcard this year is the number of ways to tie the electoral college is greater than usual with the swing states involved.
If it does tie, Romney is the automatic winner with a Republican House, but you might end up with Biden as VP.
Wouldn't that be a hoot.
I also think Obama and Romney will be one percentage closer in popular vote.
You have a good prediction.
ITL,
Sort of related to the thread, how do you think both houses of Congress will end up?
I think the Republicans will retain control of the House but lose a few seats, and the Senate will remain the same.
Agree that the House will remain in Republican control. They might even pick up a half dozen more seats.
I think the Reps have a good chance to pick up seats in Nebraska, North Dakota, Indiana, and possibly Wisconsin and Virginia. I haven't really looked to see where they might lose a seat, but I think we could see a 50/50 Senate. And as you know if Romney gets elected VP Ryan would be the tie-breaker vote in the Senate.
Why do you think Obama is going to take Virginia? They've voted Dem only once since 1972 and the latest polls show Romney with a lead there.
If the executive branch ends up being split between the two parties the U.S. would certainly have gotten what they deserve!
Could be. I based my guess on the fact that Obama has got California, Illinois, and New York plus most of the other larger cities. That gives him a lot of popular votes in states he's already got in the bag. In other words, his popular vote margins in these states will be far greater than in any swing state he might carry.
The only reason I think Obama has a chance in Virginia is that the population in the suburbs around Washington have increased more than in the rest of the state since 2008.
However, if Obama does win, it will be very narrow.
You could be right about that one.
A question back to you, why do you think Obama will win Ohio?
I won't venture a guess on the electoral college, because there are way too many states that could go either way.
I agree that OH is probably the most important state right now.
On the popular vote, I won't predict a winner, but I do predict the winner will get no more than 52%.
The popular vote will fall somewhere between 48-52% between the two candidates.
One caveat: If Romney can somehow have decisive wins in these last two debates (which will be more difficult, especially with tonight's town hall), then we could see a Romney landslide and he could maybe get like 55% of the popular vote, but the electoral college will still be somewhat close, despite that margin.
Because one out of every eight jobs in Ohio is related to the auto industry. Obama has been running ads in Ohio for months touting how he 'saved' GM and Chrysler along with ads saying Romney wanted to let GM and Chrysler go bankrupt (not what he said, it was a title of an op-ed piece.) Along with Ohio's unemployment rate being around 7%, it's Obama's state to lose.
Obama's organization in Ohio is much larger than Romney's though Romney is catching up. I read somewhere that Obama has more than twice the local campaign offices in Ohio than Romney.