Interesting history that overwhelmingly favors Romney

[Cliffy]

Hmmmmmm........

I swiped this and thought you guys would appreciate it.

Obama is sure to get less Electoral votes and Popular votes.

Why is that important?

Because in all of American history, only twice has a president been re-elected while receiving fewer electoral votes than he did when first elected—and both of those instances occurred under anomalous circumstances.

In 1912, Wilson cruised to 435 electoral votes thanks to a three-way race in which TR and Taft split the Republican vote. Running for re-election in 1916 against a re-unified Republican Party, Wilson's electoral vote total unsurprisingly dipped all the way down to 277 and he squeaked out a victory over Charles Evans Hughes.

The only other president to buck the trend was FDR, who increased his electoral vote total from 472 in 1932 to a near-sweep of 523 in '36, but then saw decreases when he ran for unprecedented third and fourth terms.

Every other president to win re-election increased his electoral vote totals:

Washington — 69 --> 132
Jefferson — 73 --> 162
Madison — 122 --> 128
Monroe — 183 --> 231
Jackson — 178 --> 219
Lincoln — 180 --> 212
Grant — 214 --> 286
McKinley — 271 --> 292
Wilson — 435 --> 277
FDR (2nd term) — 472 --> 523
FDR (3rd term) — 523 --> 449
FDR (4th term) — 449 --> 432
Eisenhower — 442 --> 457
Nixon — 301 --> 520
Reagan — 489 --> 525
Clinton — 370 --> 379
Bush 43 — 271 --> 286

The same holds true of the popular vote, where the only two re-elected presidents to receive a smaller share than when they were initially elected were Andrew Jackson and, again, FDR in his unprecedented runs for third and fourth terms:

Jackson — 55.93 --> 54.74
Lincoln — 39.65 --> 55.03
Grant — 52.66 --> 55.58
McKinley — 51.02 --> 51.64
Wilson — 41.84 --> 49.24
FDR (2nd term) — 57.41 --> 60.80
FDR (3rd term) — 60.80 --> 54.74
FDR (4th term) — 54.74 --> 53.39
Eisenhower — 55.18 --> 57.37
Nixon — 43.42 --> 60.67
Reagan — 50.75 --> 58.77
Clinton — 43.01 --> 49.23
Bush 43 —47.87 --> 50.73

Again, it is certain that Obama will not equal his 2008 totals of 365 electoral votes and 52.87% of the popular vote.

In other words, to win re-election, Obama would need to become the first president to do so while seeing his electoral and popular vote totals decline without facing a significant third-party challenger or running for a third or fourth term.

Suffice to say, history and the laws of American electoral politics favor Romney getting to 270 tomorrow.

[Speed of Sound]

http://xkcd.com/1122/

Now shut up.

[Joe Republic]

^ After looking at that link, Cliffnotes, please google the phrase 'argumentum ad antiquitatem'.

[Lief 🗽]

And as President John McCain, now running for re-election, will tell you, America's never elected a black president either.

[heatmaster]

Predictable, Democrats prefer to ignore and dismiss inconvenient facts and data. It's like a kid who doesn't want to believe that Santa Claus doesn't exist. They will never change or grow up.

[Drew1830]

Predictable, Democrats prefer to ignore and dismiss inconvenient facts and data. It's like a kid who doesn't want to believe that Santa Claus doesn't exist. They will never change or grow up.

Like all of the polls and all of the aggregates.

Oh wait.

[LastVoter]

Predictable, Democrats prefer to ignore and dismiss inconvenient facts and data. It's like a kid who doesn't want to believe that Santa Claus doesn't exist. They will never change or grow up.

You don't believe in god then, do you?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Every phenomenon is unprecedented right up until the first time it happens. In the grand scheme of things 'winning a reelection narrower than one's first election' is hardly a profound anomaly.

[Penelope]

Interesting history that overwhelmingly favors Obama: Mitt Romney has never led, or even tied for that matter, the electoral vote. That's far more telling than anything.

[Cliffy]

Interesting history that overwhelmingly favors Obama: Mitt Romney has never led, or even tied for that matter, the electoral vote. That's far more telling than anything.

Countered with Romney busted and held 50 for like 2 weeks in October, Obama never did.

[Badger]

Again, it is certain that Obama will not equal his 2008 totals of 365 electoral votes and 52.87% of the popular vote.

* * *

Suffice to say, history and the laws of American electoral politics favor Romney getting to 270 tomorrow.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6b0ftfKFEJg

[bedstuy]

In 55 of the last 56 Presidential elections, a black candidate did not win the Presidential election.  Obama is facing some steep odds. 

[Penelope]

Interesting history that overwhelmingly favors Obama: Mitt Romney has never led, or even tied for that matter, the electoral vote. That's far more telling than anything.

Countered with Romney busted and held 50 for like 2 weeks in October, Obama never did.

I just checked RCP's data - Romney briefly held a 1% margin lead for about a day, in late October. He did not at any time break 50%, or 49% for that matter.

Also, Nate Silver had Obama projected to get 51% of the popular vote back before the first debate.

[Yank2133]

Interesting history that overwhelmingly favors Obama: Mitt Romney has never led, or even tied for that matter, the electoral vote. That's far more telling than anything.

Who cares about data, when you have "gut".

[Likely Voter]

OK so we should be paying attention to yard signs, what some pundit said, Football game winner, crowd sizes, where Bill Clinton is going, and the reelection of Andrew Jackson. 

Got it!  I'm on board 100% Anything else we should be paying attention to?  Sunspots? How about tea leaves? Do horoscopes also factor in? We must be diligent and make sure we get all the data.

What about polling averages? The things that have accurately predicted past elections. I'm guessing we should ignore those right? Except for the secret polls that only Dick Morris sees of course!

[Zanas]

Do as I did : use that shiny little red button in the upper right part of those hacks' posts. I have dirks, cliffy, orion0, heatmaster covered right now, and what a bliss it is I can tell you !

[Penelope]

OK so we should be paying attention to yard signs, what some pundit said, Football game winner, crowd sizes, where Bill Clinton is going, and the reelection of Andrew Jackson. 

Got it!  I'm on board 100% Anything else we should be paying attention to?  Sunspots? How about tea leaves? Do horoscopes also factor in? We must be diligent and make sure we get all the data.

What about polling averages? The things that have accurately predicted past elections. I'm guessing we should ignore those right? Except for the secret polls that only Dick Morris sees of course!

I've heard rumors that Romney is gonna sweep Scorpios.

[King]

Because of the Indiana outlier in 2008, even if Obama won this election by 10 points, he still would have ended up with 11 less EVs than 2008.

Well, unless a 10 point margin would flip Arizona's 11.  Either way, it would be impossible to increase.  Obama, like Woodrow Wilson, got as many EVs as a Democrat could possibly get in today's electoral climate.

[Orion0]

Do as I did : use that shiny little red button in the upper right part of those hacks' posts. I have dirks, cliffy, orion0, heatmaster covered right now, and what a bliss it is I can tell you !

 If I didn't occasionally click on 'show' beside your ignored posts to see what sort of blithe ignorance or completely inane chatter you write I would never know this. Bliss to me is having you, yank and lief on ignore. The only 3 that are truly so wrapped up in ignorance and partisanship to not even be worth reading. (although sometimes I do just for a chuckle)

Anyways, it's going to be a historic election, defying history etcetc no matter who wins. Polling aggregates say one thing. I believe the results will say another.

[Antonio the Sixth]

http://xkcd.com/1122/

Now shut up.

[/thread]

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Madison's percentage of the electoral vote dropped by 10 freaking points. His electoral count only went up because of a massive enlargement of the House. This is pretty asinine.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

Cool story, bro.

[Landslide Lyndon]

Hmmmmmm........

I swiped this and thought you guys would appreciate it.

You know what we'd REALLY appreciate from you? Shuting the [Inks] up.

[Seriously?]

Interesting history that overwhelmingly favors Obama: Mitt Romney has never led, or even tied for that matter, the electoral vote. That's far more telling than anything.

Who cares about data, when you have "gut".

You want data?

Through data through 11/5, Ohioians have voted 17,000 fewer times in the 22 counties that Obama has won vs. 2008, but have voted 90,758 more times in the 66 counties won by McCain.

The 22nd county won by Obama is Jefferson, which is in the middle of coal country. Obama won that county by .21% in 2008. 4,793 more people have voted early in this election than in '08 in that county. Something tells me most of those votes are not going for Obama.

Sorry, PPP, Obama's win total of 4.5-points will shrink from his 2008 numbers. The only question is by how much and whether it is enough to vote out the incumbent President.

[Franzl]

In 55 of the last 56 Presidential elections, a black candidate did not win the Presidential election.  Obama is facing some steep odds. 

But in all the last 56 elections, a Mormon has never won.