Electoral Vote Contest

In just over two weeks all the campaigning, debating, advertising and analyzing will be over and it’ll all be up the Electoral College.

As a little election-season fun, see if you can guess what the Electoral College result will be.

If you need a little help figuring out a good guess, you might find these helpful: The Electoral College, and 2012 Presidential Election. Post your best guess in the comment section.

Prize: the winner will receive a copy of two books:

The World-Tilting Gospel: Embracing a Biblical Worldview and Hanging on Tight and Fatal Illusions: A Novel

Whoever is closest to the actual electoral vote is the winner. Ties will be drawn from a hat (or similar randomizing tool). The contest is open to all registered SI users (register here), but the Publisher and Moderators, etc. are not eligible for the prize (only bragging rights). The deadline for your “prediction” is midnight, Friday, November 2.

(But don’t wait until Nov. 2, to post your guess. You can always revise it until the deadline.)

Discussion

Also quite helpful: Real Clear Politics

Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.

[I’m not eligible to win the books but I’m in it for the bragging rights!]

From my blog:

  • Virginia, Florida and Ohio: I’m hopeful that all go to Romney. I think he needs all three
  • Recent polling has Romney up in Pennsylvania.
  • Nebraska and Maine split electoral votes by congressional district. I gave Obama all of Maine and 1 from Nebraska
  • I think that Colorado and Nevada could go for Romney but I left in Obama column
  • I’ve seen some polls that suggest that Wisconsin could go Romney but I left that in the Obama column as well
  • Romney = 285 / Obama = 253
  • My shared Electoral vote map from 270 to win: Peet’s prediction

Romney wins Florida, Virginia, Colorado, Iowa, Nevada

Obama wins Ohio, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Wisconsin

Electoral college ends in a 269-269 tie. House of Representatives elects Romney

Call me an optimist, but I see current trends continuing, with Romney gaining momentum. Pretty much any state that had less than a 6% Obama lead using yesterday’s RCP numbers, I’ve got in the Romney column.

So I’ve got FL, PA, MI, WI and NV and OH all going to Romney. I have MN in the Obama column—they’re about as crazy as CA over there. :D

Sate Ob Ro
AL 9
AK 3
AZ 11
AR 6
CA 55
CO 9
CT 7
DE 3
DC 3
FL 29
GA 16
HI 4
ID 4
IL 20
IN 11
IA 6
KS 6
KY 8
LA 8
ME 4
MD 10
MA 11
MI 16
MN 10
MS 6
MO 10
MT 3
NE 5
NV 6
NH 4
NJ 14
NM 5
NY 29
NC 15
ND 3
OH 18
OK 7
OR 7
PA 20
RI 4
SC 9
SD 3
TN 11
TX 38
UT 6
VT 3
VA 13
WA 12
WV 5
WI 10
WY 3
188 350

Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.

Romney-286

Obama-252

John Uit de Flesch

No one is predicting Romney will lose? I still think his victory is all but certain. I’m hopeful but cautious. As for numbers. I gotta do some more digging (I’ll wait till Nov 1 - but isn’t the election on Nov 6 this year anyway? ;)

Striving for the unity of the faith, for the glory of God ~ Eph. 4:3, 13; Rom. 15:5-7 I blog at Fundamentally Reformed. Follow me on Twitter.

[Bob Hayton]

No one is predicting Romney will lose? I still think his victory is all but certain. I’m hopeful but cautious. As for numbers. I gotta do some more digging (I’ll wait till Nov 1 - but isn’t the election on Nov 6 this year anyway? ;)

Yup! We decided to close the contest at end of day on 11/2 because polling tends to converge and be more accurate on the eve of the election.

…maybe more of a hypothesis: in this high-data age, people don’t pay attention to the Next Big Event until it’s pretty close. This is why it is taking so many so long to figure out what ought to have been obvious more than a year ago.

Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.

[Bob Hayton]

No one is predicting Romney will lose? I still think his victory is all but certain. I’m hopeful but cautious. As for numbers. I gotta do some more digging (I’ll wait till Nov 1 - but isn’t the election on Nov 6 this year anyway? ;)

Well, I’m sure not predicting a Romney win. I hope I’m wrong, but I’m just not seeing a big groundswell of support for Romney. I think it’s too close to call, though I think it’s too much to hope for an electoral college tie!

Dave Barnhart

If the election does end up tied and being decided in the House of Representatives, the Senate chooses the VP. If the Democrats retain control of that body (the voting is done by the new Congress, not the old one) they could and likely would choose Biden for VP. Not likely, but it would be interesting.

I was a political science major. The pressure is on. If I were to predict what I think will happen rather than what I hope: 284-254 Obama. I hope to revise soon.

Also, I thought it was really cute of the author of the post to put “prediction” in quotes: just to make sure we’re not talking about any prophecy going down on SI right? HAHAHA

There are professors of political science who believe Romeny not only has the edge but will win.

So much for that.

The momentum is toward Romney. The pivot is similar than the Regan/Carter pivot. You will not see as great a win as Reagan but it will not be questionable in the least. Romney in the + 300 electoral votes, likely mid 300’s. New Jersey and New York could be unanticipated shockers.

However, the demographic, unlike 1980, is a bit different. Cry Baby Boomers had come of age and were throwing off their adolescent political naivety in mass (at least on this occasion). Today the X-Gens and Millennial are not as “group similar”. They don’t move as a unit quite the same as the Cry Baby Boomers did.

I believe you will get a similar effect with them but not as large a percentage as the Cry Baby Boomers had in their pivot and coupled with Latino uncertainty based on the racialization/ethnicization of the presidential race which will contribute more to Obama than Romney than it did to Carter vs Reagan, the Romney momentum and win will be similar but not identical.

The Monday debate could call for some revisions. Three general outcomes:

1. Not decisive one way or the other (pretty likely)

2. Increases Romney momentum (very possible)

3. Turns momentum in Obama’s direction (not impossible, but least likely scenario)

If we see #2, then in the ensuing week, some of the holdout “battleground” states begin to poll for Romney by election day and a few of the historically Democrat states move into “toss up” column (and a few go to Romney)

Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.