Political: What state will decide the election in November?

[raven79]

It is going to be a nailbiter so which state will decide the winner of the election this year.

[CelticMuscle]

I've voted for Iowa. The reasonings for this is that at the moment (using a three day rolling average of the Real Clear Politics polls) Romney is ahead by 0.3% (representing a swing of 3.8% since 2008). Using a national uniform swing calculator, that gives us Obama 272 Romney 266 with Iowa the tipping point).

[Aielyn]

Which state will decide the election? Well, as an Australian, my answer is "The state of utter political ignorance of the American people".

[nzbodybuilder]

I really don't understand american politics. Is it true that even if one person, or party, or whatever, the majority of votes, they can still lose because they didn't get enough states?

Well, I guess I shouldn't try to make sense of things, considering there is a senator who believes the world is 6,000 years old and is the head of the science advisory board.....

[raven79]

The answer to your question is yes, Luke. Perfect example is the election of 2000 when Al Gore defeated George W. Bush in the popular vote. It all came down to one state and......well I'm sure you know the story.

So far, this is not the case with this election as Obama still leads nationally by about 1%. The source of my information is 538.com. They are not affiliated with any political party.

The electoral college selects a winner according to their majority of votes in the states. Each state has a select amount of votes. Some are more prized than others.

41 of the 50 states are not sought after in this election, as well as DC. It sounds ridiculous, but the nine in this poll are the ones that will decide the winner. There are huge ones (FL, OH, VA) and then there are the small ones (IA, NH, NV). At this point, I would put CO and NC in Romney's column and WI in Obama's. Obama may have already locked up OH as he still leads comfortably there. Romney cannot win without any of the FL, OH, VA combination, they have too much importance. Those other three smaller states are also important because of the 270 factor. NH is probably the most important one of those three, as that state is also the most conservative in that region of the country. (Obama leads there too)

NV is tied currently and may go Romney's way, but IA has consistently stayed in Obama's column the whole time. He leads by three points there right now. FL is known as the 'flip-flop' state for a reason. It changes its mind daily. One day its Obama's, the next its Romney's. I think VA is the decider in this election because if Obama wins both OH and VA, the election is over. Check out http://www.270towin.com/ and see what I am talking about.

All of the sites that I frequent have Obama leading, but the debates are extremely important because of the independent voters.

Aielyn, Americans are registering as independents in record numbers so we are about to experience a revolution in politics very soon. If Romney loses the presidency, the Republican party may cease to exist in its current state. The Democratic party is changing too as it is losing a lot of voters to independent parties. The next presidential election in 2016 may look a lot like the election of 1992 when Reform Party candidate Ross Perot scored 20% of the vote. He helped get Bill Clinton elected and ended George Bush Sr's reign as president.

[CelticMuscle]

In fact even extending that to the nth degree. If a candidate were to win (by one vote only) the following states, he'd win the presidency without having to campaign in any other states.

CA, TX, FL, GA, NC, IL, MI, OH, PA, NY, NJ

As those states tally up to 270 electoral college votes. My feelings are that the electoral college should be brought down to the congressional district level so that in 2008 the result would have been Obama 300 McCain 238 (and apparently I am not the only person who thinks that as well

[Aielyn]

Originally Posted by CelticMuscle

My feelings are that the electoral college should be brought down to the congressional district level so that in 2008 the result would have been Obama 300 McCain 238 (and apparently I am not the only person who thinks that as well

Why not just get rid of the outdated "Electoral College" system entire - it made sense 200 years ago, when everything had to be physically moved, which took a long time. Now, you can have every single vote in the country counted and collected within a day.

So why not just switch to a majority vote, and be done with it? Let the people, rather than an "Electoral College", choose the president.

[raven79]

A majority vote will never happen Aielyn because no one would be elected in this country. Some states have run-offs in case no candidate reaches 50% of the vote. This has happened many times in states like LA or GA.

Basically if a candidate reaches 50%, they are guaranteed victory. Ironically, 1992 was a perfect example of this not happening. There were three major candidates that year and no one reached 50%. The electoral college didn't have to be a factor though because Clinton and Bush were the only ones to win states, Perot couldn't even win his home state of TX.

The electoral college will never go away either because it is considered the authority in elections. The popular vote does serve a purpose, but it depends on where you live. In the state I live in, my vote isn't as important as say OH, FL, or VA. The more people voting, the more influential they are on the electoral college. That is why the college and the popular vote don't always match, as with the election of 2000.

[CelticMuscle]

Raven's point is quite well taken. If you did have a majority vote system in the United States, then only the big states would see any campaign visits. The electoral college may be deemed unfair by some people but at least it allows states like New Hampshire (4), Iowa (6) and Nevada (5) to have some say.

What I am looking forward to is the potential of a reverse of 2000 (i.e Obama wins the presidency by just crossing the 270 mark, but Romney polling the most popular votes) if only to see who starts complaining then.

[raven79]

UGH, Celtic you are wanting me to have a heart attack with that scenario which may actually happen at this point. As of now, that is going to happen.

[Aielyn]

Originally Posted by raven79

A majority vote will never happen Aielyn because no one would be elected in this country. Some states have run-offs in case no candidate reaches 50% of the vote. This has happened many times in states like LA or GA.

Ever heard of preferential voting? It's used here in Australia, and it would resolve that particular issue. It's also known as instant run-off.

Not only that, but it would also break the stranglehold that the Democrats and Republicans have on the system, because people would have more motivation to vote for third-party candidates. But of course, that's also precisely why it's not going to happen, isn't it - because neither the Dems nor the Reps want to implement it and reduce their stranglehold.

[CelticMuscle]

Originally Posted by Aielyn

Ever heard of preferential voting? It's used here in Australia, and it would resolve that particular issue. It's also known as instant run-off.

United Kingdom Alternative Vote Referendum Result : May 2011
[COLOR="Lime"]Yes, I am in favour of adopting the Alternative Vote 6,152,607 votes (32%)[/COLOR]
[COLOR="Red"]No, I am not in favour of adopting the Alternative Vote 13,013,123 votes (68%)[/COLOR]
[COLOR="Red"]Alternative Vote REJECTED with a majority of 6,860,516 votes (36%)[/COLOR]

If the United Kingdom rejected instant run off voting, what chance has the United States got of accepting it?

[Aielyn]

Originally Posted by CelticMuscle

United Kingdom Alternative Vote Referendum Result : May 2011
[COLOR="Lime"]Yes, I am in favour of adopting the Alternative Vote 6,152,607 votes (32%)[/COLOR]
[COLOR="Red"]No, I am not in favour of adopting the Alternative Vote 13,013,123 votes (68%)[/COLOR]
[COLOR="Red"]Alternative Vote REJECTED with a majority of 6,860,516 votes (36%)[/COLOR]

If the United Kingdom rejected instant run off voting, what chance has the United States got of accepting it?

Vote turnout: 42%

Compare with Australia, in which voting is mandatory, and after removing informal votes (votes that are rejected due to failing to correctly fill out the ballot), where net turnout less than 80% is considered a low number. Turnout at our last election was 93.21% (plus 5.55% informal).

Both America's and Britain's electoral systems are screwed up. In Australia, we have our own problems, but it's not due to the electoral system (part of it is the parliamentary system, though).

[raven79]

You are right Aielyn. Our young people do not feel like they have a duty to vote because if they did, the GOP would not have any power in this country. This country is controlled by the rich and powerful and the old. Part of Romney's campaign is to bash Europe and tell voters that he will keep us from becoming 'one of those' countries. (Socialist )

On another note, Biden was declared the winner in the vice-presidential debate. This is great news for the Obama campaign because this will stop Romney from advancing further. The question now is will Obama perform like he should have in the first debate this coming Tuesday night?

Current status on battleground states:

IA (6), NH (4), NV (6), OH (18), WI (10) for Obama; CO (9), FL (29), NC (15) for Romney; VA (13) is a tie

[raven79]

Well, Obama won the second debate, but not much movement in frankly anything this week.

It does appear that he will win Iowa and Nevada at this point for different reasons. IA is very sensitive to vote out the incumbent even if the race is close. NV is being dominated by Latinos so that is a factor there as well as in Colorado and Florida. Those two states are also going in different directions.

Current score:

IA, NH, NV, OH, WI for Obama;
FL and NC for Romney;
CO and VA are still toss-ups;
PA is a state to watch as it is now considered a swing state of late

[raven79]

Foreign policy is not Romney's strong point so Obama won the last debate. There is very little change other than VA now slowly moving back over to Obama. (It went from being a tie to Obama leading by less than a point.)

The next two weeks will be crucial for Obama to hold on to OH because everyone knows Romney won't stop until he gets it. Obama also conceded NC so it will not be a factor anymore.

Romney has about a 4-5 point lead in NC and a 2 point lead in FL, but is losing in every other battleground state currently. Obama leads by less than a point in CO and VA and about 1-2 points in IA and NH; 2-3 points in OH; and 3-4 points in NV and WI.

More later in the week.

[Ragetiger]

This election is rather scary. So close in some states that this one might not be called till the very last states have closed the voting booths.

I will agree that Romney did seem to fautler on the last debate; however, most agree that this one doesn't really affact the outcome. This is based on the last few elections, more are concerned with economy.

People do tend to forget that Obama was in the same position 4 years ago, not having experience with foreign policy.

[raven79]

Chester, the parallels with Obama's reelection and Bush 43's reelection are so similar that OH was the factor back in 2004 also.

This election is also similar to 2000 in the fact that Romney could win the popular vote, but lose the electoral vote. (Some are saying that this is payback for that election.)

OH was the state in 2004 and FL was the state in 2000. It seems like this is going to happen every other election now.

[Ragetiger]

Originally Posted by raven79

Chester, the parallels with Obama's reelection and Bush 43's reelection are so similar that OH was the factor back in 2004 also.

This election is also similar to 2000 in the fact that Romney could win the popular vote, but lose the electoral vote. (Some are saying that this is payback for that election.)

OH was the state in 2004 and FL was the state in 2000. It seems like this is going to happen every other election now.

FL in 2000 was a complete disaster, the news media toatlly forgotten that FL is in two time zones, so it got called too early. Then there was the lengthy recount effort.

However I was talking about Obama's run in 08 to Romney in 12, where neither of them have foreign diplomat experience. (sorry for such horrid spelling, my mind is in another universe).

[raven79]

Yeah, I know what you meant. Obama automatically is favored because he is the incumbent in foreign policy. What I don't understand is how people will say that the economy is improving now and yet go out and vote for the other guy because they want a change. Uh DUH! (When did the electorate become so ignorant of reality?)

Do they honestly think that the economy will continue to improve if they put the opposition in power? I really don't think people have minds anymore and am thankful that the electoral college is NOT tied to the popular vote because the voters are losing their sanity.

There is good news now though. The results from that last debate may be affecting the electoral map. In only a few days, Colorado, New Hampshire, and Virginia have went back into Obama's column. If Virginia continues to stay with Obama through the next week and a half, then things will turn out great. In terms of the big three battleground states the order of conservatism is FL>VA>OH. If Florida is now tied, then Romney is starting to lose his touch because that means people are getting wind of his deception. This could change over the weekend though so we will have to see.

My expectations for the end of the week:

Clinched already: Obama 237, Romney 191

Obama: CO, IA, NH, NV, OH, VA, WI (66);
Romney: NC (15);
Tie: FL (29)

Obama would win already with this outcome: 303-206, with Florida now tied shockingly.