2012: Obama/Biden vs. Gingrich/Rice

[tmthforu94]

Was thinking about this earlier, and want to write it out. Obviously, everyone thinks Obama would blow Gingrich away. But here's a way I think Gingrich could have pulled it out:

Gingrich wins South Carolina, and has the momentum going into Florida. Romney cuts into it, but it isn't quite enough, as Gingrich barely squeeks by in the Sunshine State. He surprises folks by winning Colorado and Minnesota a few days later, and gets the ball rolling by upsetting Romney in Michigan in late February, then with critical wins in Ohio, Illinois, and Wisconsin later on.

Romney concedes in mid-May, and Gingrich is the presumptive nominee. He begins by trailing President Obama 50-39 in the polls, and the map looks something like this:

Gingrich spends the summer in an attempt to rebuild his image, and begins a more bi-partisan message, emphasizing his work with President Clinton as Speaker and attempting to appeal to Latino's with his moderate immigration proposals. As time wore on, more and more Americans begin to support Gingrich, though he still has high unfavorable numbers. The Tea Party was pretty pleased with his candidacy, but he needed an extra push to try and bring moderates into his tent, as well as women voters, a group Obama was leading by a large margin. In a surprise to many, he chose former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice. Democrats would spend the next few months attempting to tie both of them to President Bush, but she was overall a plus, as the gap closed with Independents.

The GOP convention was all about rebranding Gingrich as a good guy - they just needed Americans to like Gingrich, because most already felt he was smart and qualified enough to be President. They were semi-successful in doing so. Following the convention, Gingrich's favorable numbers had rebounded to 40-48, a major improvement from where they were at the beginning of the summer. Following the conventions, Gingrich now only trailed President Obama 50-45, but more needed to be done.

[NHI]

Looks promising.

[tmthforu94]

Gingrich had made things interesting, but he still had work to do if he actually wanted to win. Known as a skilled debater, he began to rely on the debates as his way to get back into the race. While his fundraising numbers were strong, they weren't nearly as strong as what Romney's would have been, and he was way behind Obama.

The first debate rolled around, and it was clear that President Obama was relying on his lead, which was hovering around 7%. Gingrich came out swinging, and he was successful, similar to how Romney was in RL. After the debate, undecided voters said Gingrich won by a 62-25 margin. More importantly, Gingrich had pulled even on the question "Who do you trust more to turn around the economy?" The following week, the VP candidates debated, and this proved to be the gamechanger. Biden spent the entire debate acting very emotional, and interrupted Secretary Rice on numerous occasions, yet she fought back most of the time. However, the memorable moment happened during one exchange when Biden was speaking, Rice cut him off, to which Biden retorted "Well, that wasn't a ladylike thing to do." Polls after showed that women voters were extremely turned off by the statement, and voters overwhelmingly saw Rice as the winner.

The second and third debates proved to be critical to Obama - polls now showed him and Gingrich even, with Gingrich even leading in the occasional poll. While the town-hall debate was an improvement for Obama, polls still showed that most voters were more impressed with Gingrich, who was coming across extremely knowledgeable in the debates, as he did in the primaries. The final debate, focused on foreign policy, was a huge improvement for the President, as a slim majority actually saw him winning the debate, but it was clear that with less than two weeks until the election, Gingrich was starting to get momentum.
The day of the election, the map looked like this:

Exit polls showed a tight race - the race hinged entirely on Ohio, where the last three polls had Obama ahead by 1, Gingrich ahead by 3, and a tie. Ultimately, Gingrich narrowly wins the election, winning the popular vote by just over 2%. His win is attributed to keeping the female vote razor-thin while also making huge improvements for the GOP with Latino voters.

Gingrich/Rice - 50.3% PV, 287 EV
Obama/Biden - 48.2% PV, 251 EV

[tmthforu94]

That's all. I didn't mean for this to be a detailed timeline, just a hypothetical scenario where Gingrich won. We all saw how big the debates were for Romney, and he only won one of them. Gingrich is a skilled debater - say he wins all three debates, would that have been enough for him to win?

Would love to see some other maps. I actually think Gingrich could have kept it close, only due to the debates. It would have been a brutal summer for him, though.

[reagan84]

How does the black vote go?  I'd imagine that even with Rice on the ticket, it still goes 85-90% for Obama.

[Jerseyrules]

I wonder what would've happened if Gingrich had clinched the nomination - he said during the primaries he wanted 7 Lincoln-Douglas style debated with no moderator.  That would've been interesting