Will Romney win the popular vote but lose the presidency?

There is a lot of information in this article to consider, but I have seen this discussed other places too. If Obama wins Ohio which he is expected to do, it is very unlikely that Romney will win the election. Hopefully voter suppression, which has been very prevalant by republicans this year, won't throw the election.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -------

Will Romney win the popular vote but lose the presidency?

It’s time to just say this clearly: A straightforward read of the polls suggests we’re likely to see Mitt Romney win the popular vote and Barack Obama win the electoral college — and, thus, the presidency. But most pollsters don’t think that will happen.

The national polling averages are clear: Romney is slightly ahead, and has been for weeks. As of this writing, he leads by 0.9 percent in the Real Clear Politics average and by 0.4 percent in the Pollster.com average.

But the state polling averages are also clear: Obama leads in Ohio, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, Iowa, Nevada, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Colorado and Virginia are essentially tied. Florida and North Carolina favor Romney. Even if Obama loses both Colorado and Virginia, he still wins with more than 290 electoral votes.

Friday morning, I asked a range of pollsters why I shouldn’t, at this point, view a popular vote/electoral college split as a very likely outcome.

Tom Jensen, of Public Policy Polling, agreed. “Over the last couple weeks we’ve done polls finding Obama doing more than 10 points worse than 2008 in states like Connecticut, Massachusetts, Illinois, and Washington and those big shifts make a Romney popular vote win more likely but of course have no impact on the electoral college,” he wrote in an e-mail. “And Obama’s drop in key swing states like Ohio, Virginia, Florida, and North Carolina relative to 2008 hasn’t been as small as the national drop because he’s run such a strong campaign in those places and in the latter 3 because they’re so racially diverse so his big decline with white voters doesn’t have as big an impact.”

Scott Rasmussen, of Rasmussen Reports, was more circumspect. “For that to happen, Romney would probably have to win the popular vote by less than a point, and Obama would have to win Ohio and Wisconsin,” he said. “It could happen, but there’s plenty of time for that scenario to change. A small shift could put Obama ahead in popular vote. Or, Romney could win the popular vote by 2 or more points. If so, he probably wins electoral College.”

A number of pollsters and poll-watchers said they simply didn’t trust the polls right now: They figured that either the national polls or the state polls were slightly off. “I still wouldn’t bet on [a split],” said Alan Abramowitz, a political scientist at Emory University. “Right now, the gap looks too large to me to be real. I can’t see Obama leading by the margins he appears to have in some of the swing states and still be trailing by 2-3 points nationally. And I think the most likely explanation is that the national polls right now are a little off in part due to the influence of Gallup and Rasmussen.”

Another argument I heard was that with the polls this close, the election really comes down to turnout. “The number of variables in terms of turnout that still exist are major,” e-mailed David Winston, director of the Winston Group. “Party ID, minority composition, younger voters [all] make it more complicated to assess.’

In other words, in an election this closely divided and with so much effort focused on historically low-turnout groups like Latinos and young voters, the polls have to do a lot of guesswork to figure out the shape of the electorate, and they may be guessing wrong. If Obama’s ground game outperforms Romney’s ground game in a big way, Obama could easily win the popular vote. But if Obama’s coalition stays home, then Romney could easily win both the popular vote and the electoral college.

Most of the pollsters I spoke to seemed cautiously confident that we weren’t going to see a split between the electoral college and the popular vote. Such splits, they said, are very rare in American history, and they tend to be the result of extraordinary circumstances or electoral irregularities (like the “butterfly ballots” in Florida). Nevertheless, a split is, at the moment, what most of their polls are showing.

www.washingtonpost.com...

reply to post by CB328


Nah, most of Obama's swing state leads are pretty flimsy to begin with. People stopped talking about the Dem skew on polls after Romney took the national lead, but those skews didn't go away. Romney has made it tight enough in all the swing states he needs to win, that unless Obama gets a repeat or better of the turnout in 2008, he's done. Nationally, Romney will probably get 51% of the vote.

I think Romney could get 51% of the popular vote and still lose. If you read about the state of the electoral college and swing states it is likely Obama will get more electoral college votes.

reply to post by CB328




I heard there is a very real possibility this might happen.

Nearly 70% of the people have wanted to get rid of the electoral vote process and switch to the popular vote like in most other true Democracies the world over. In 2000-01 GWB lost the popular vote and still became President, which is why people were freaking.

Our Constitution requires the electoral college vote reign supreme and so we would need a Constitutional Amendment to overturn it. Although most people complain about it, that has never happened.

People have said that if Obama wins this way (by electoral votes alone) they will freak again. You can bet an amendment will be drafted quickly and that pesky "electoral college" will be gone in a Brooklyn second. I think so too. Another positive perk of an Obama Presidency. S & F!

reply to post by CB328


I understand that if you take the RCP averages at face value at this point, that looks like the likely outcome. I find it wholly unconvincing. Some of these polls, the Time one showing Obama up by 5 in Ohio for instance, they show Romney with 20+ leads among independents. The only reason he's losing is a big Dem skew and a mysteriously high number of uncommitted Republicans. I'm just simply not convinced that a man who's going to win the National Vote by 2+ million is going to be losing in the electoral college as well. In a closer race? Maybe.

Romney is ahead in polls because his numbers are being highly inflated by the huge lead he enjoys in southern states.

Obama just needs to win 1/3 of the swing states and he's got himself another 4 years

I wonder if all these republicans talking about god wanting women to be raped and such are going to have a last minute effect on the vote?

Regardless of party or politics, anyone that wins the popular vote should win the election. Even if that means Gore would have won....

The electoral college is a horrible system and undermines the value of the individual vote.

reply to post by snusfanatic

a mysteriously high number of uncommitted Republicans.

Mysterious? I can solve that mystery in two words...Ron Paul!

Many of my fellow Republicans know that Romney is just the same elitist clown in a new suit. He will not change the direction of America.

Hell, HE IS THE GODFATHER OF OBAMACARE! And we expect different from him come election day?

Can someone show me where the facepalm emoticon is? I can't seem to find it.

reply to post by muse7


Sorry, but both men have sewn up 90+ of their own party, 5 or so of the other guy's, and Romney is up 10-20 with independents in swing state results that are used to concoct these split scenarios.

All this 'southern states are skewing,' stuff is just the same old 'minorities are breeding the GOP out of existence' crap that I've heard pretty much my whole life. Democrats have to show up big for Obama to win; significantly bigger than GOP and Independent voters. It's not happening.

Why would this be such a surprising thing? This just happened with Gore and Bush. Gore had the popular vote but lost to Bush. Actually... Gore had the the college majority too but we won't go there.

OP, your question: Will Romney win the popular vote but lose the presidency?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My answer: Absolutely Not. The two most populous states, California and New York, are deep blue. They overwhelmingly vote Democrat 60 to 40 or better. Romney will win as long as the race is a dead heat.

Contrasting your question: Despite what the MSM says, the odds are higher that Obama may win the popular vote, but lose the presidency.

-au

the odds are higher that Obama may win the popular vote, but lose the presidency.

Where did you get that idea? You should read the article.

remember 2010?

most polls showed republicans down by a few points.

but it ended up being a blowout in favor of republicans.

landslide 2012...


don't be so confident about ohio, or wisconsin.

I believe Romney will win for this simple fact..

Glenn Beck - "Give them [Democrats] enough rope .. and they they will hang themselves."

Im not a big Glenn Beck guy but I do agree with this statement...
Just look at Benghazi, the debt, unemployment, healthcare and not to mention the silly attack ads.

Even if its close enough for a tie.. The house of representatives pick the President.

Just my 2 cents

reply to post by CB328

A basic question, if you don't mind, from one of the "slower" members.

All we really have to go on now are polls. I think all of the polls have been criticized by one side or the other. Even your source article comes from a paper which has formally endorsed Obama. Where should we be looking for reasonable information and polling? Do you trust the polls that were accurate in 2008 and 2010? Does the Democrat over-sampling in some polls bother you?

Unless there is some answer to that, it seems we'll just be quoting battling polls at each other. That's fun in a way, but doesn't resolve much.

Originally posted by LeoStarchild
.

Glenn Beck - "Give them [Democrats] enough rope .. and they they will hang themselves."


yup, commies always destroy themselves...