Was Romney ever perceived as having a chance?

[darklordoftech]

Or was he seen as Bob Dole 2.0?

[Left Wing]

Yes, I think many people thought he had a chance. There were times in the race when it appeared he would win.

[Joe Republic]

The aftermath of the first debate, in which Obama was caught sleeping and the mainstream "Now we've got a horse race!!!1" media had a meltdown, was the only time where I personally considered the possibility of Romney narrowly winning.

[dw93]

I thought so. Things looked bleak for Obama in the fall of 2011.

[Grassroots]

Summer and early fall after the first debate, Romney got in the race really strong. I remember my step uncle (Bush-Obama voter) started supporting Romney after that first debate performance and eventually voted for him.

[EJ24]

Yes, especially after that first debate. Obama didn't look on top of his game at all there, and it gave Romney a lot of momentum.

Romney had a chance until that 47% video leak, and everything after that was just damage control. That video essentially confirmed the image the Obama campaign tried to portray of Romney. That he was an out of touch business stiff who cared nothing for working people and in fact had disdain for them.

[Senator Incitatus]

Yes, after the first debate, the conventional wisdom was that Romney could or even would win.

[El Betico]

In his best days I thought he could win the Popular Vote but not the Electoral College.

[SN2903]

After the first debate and even in late October Romney had some really favorable polls. I honestly thought he was going to win.

[Flyersfan232]

Yes, especially after that first debate. Obama didn't look on top of his game at all there, and it gave Romney a lot of momentum.

Romney had a chance until that 47% video leak, and everything after that was just damage control. That video essentially confirmed the image the Obama campaign tried to portray of Romney. That he was an out of touch business stiff who cared nothing for working people and in fact had disdain for them.

Then he ends up winning 47% of the vote

[tagimaucia]

My recollection is that most conservative pundits and commentators truly thought he was going to win (even though it would be close) right up to election day.

There was a ton of mockery of Nate Silver/538 on right-leaning twitter and blogs and widespread belief that the polls were systematically skewed against Romney and were modeling the electorate incorrectly.

[RI]

I never seriously thought he had a chance, no.

[Spark]

Not in my view, no.

[BobbieMac]

My recollection is that most conservative pundits and commentators truly thought he was going to win (even though it would be close) right up to election day.

There was a ton of mockery of Nate Silver/538 on right-leaning twitter and blogs and widespread belief that the polls were systematically skewed against Romney and were modeling the electorate incorrectly.

This is all I remember now, various unskewing of polls to prove Romney was coasting home to victory.

[El Betico]

My recollection is that most conservative pundits and commentators truly thought he was going to win (even though it would be close) right up to election day.

There was a ton of mockery of Nate Silver/538 on right-leaning twitter and blogs and widespread belief that the polls were systematically skewed against Romney and were modeling the electorate incorrectly.

Yes, from what I recall their point was that polls were wrong because they supposedly( and on purpose) overestimated Dem advantage in party ID...in the end, polls were absolutely right on that...party ID was, what?, Dem +6?

[Statilius the Epicurean]

I never seriously thought he had a chance, no.

This, mainly because the electoral college map was too steep. Even after the first debate Romney's "surge" took him to barely tying Ohio in the state polling.

[Chips]

I thought Romney had a chance. My final electoral map was Obama 288, Romney 250 with FL, CO and IA flipped from the final results. Narrow wins in VA and OH put Obama over the top in my prediction,

[100% pro-life no matter what]

I thought he was going to win, but I was 16 and mostly looking at things that would confirm that (like the PV having him ahead for most of October and Rasmussen swing state polls showing him ahead in most).

I think the CW was that Obama was the favorite, but Romney had a decent chance.  Kind of like 2004 with the parties reversed.

[Chips]

It should be noted that even in 2008 before the crash many people thought McCain had a chance.

[NerdyBohemian]

Yes, especially after that first debate. Obama didn't look on top of his game at all there, and it gave Romney a lot of momentum.

Romney had a chance until that 47% video leak, and everything after that was just damage control. That video essentially confirmed the image the Obama campaign tried to portray of Romney. That he was an out of touch business stiff who cared nothing for working people and in fact had disdain for them.

Then he ends up winning 47% of the vote

That was so poetic.

[The Mikado]

There were a few points in 2012 when Romney definitely had a chance.

By Election Day it was obvious his goose was cooked, though. Hurricane Sandy was the nail in the coffin the way I remember it. Obama got to look like a hero responding to a natural disaster and got to look bipartisan by hugging Chris Christie and etc and a crisis like that, if well handled, is an advantage a President gets that a challenger can't hope to compete with.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

I think Hurricane Sandy is overrated. Romney was well lost by then and was trying a desperate play for PA.

[The Mikado]

The Obama team was confident in part because they thought they had the Electoral College advantage, which in fact turned out to be true.

Obama won the popular vote by 3.8% and got 332 EVs. Take that to a tied popular vote and Obama gets 285 EVs. You have to swing all the way to Romney +1.8% to get Romney the win. This is a big part of what caused Hillary Clinton's overconfidence in 2016: Dems had had the EV advantage to some extent in 2004 (0.4%), 2008 (2.2%), and 2012 (1.8%). Who would've guessed that Trump's giant 2.8% EV advantage would be the very next cycle?

In 2012, Obama knew perfectly well he had at least some cushion even during the periods when he and Romney were basically tied.

[Redban]

He was perceived as having a chance, when the reality is that he didn't.

People, I remember, were talking about:

1). No incumbent ever wins during a bad economy
2). Obama's approval ratings weren't so hot for most of the year
3). The 2011 elections, where Republicans whooped Democrats, were considered a foreshadowing

So people legit thought Romney was going to win. On the night before, Fox News (I know) had a group of panelists who said Romney was going to win. Karl Rove put out a map showing Romney taking the election too.

[RINO Tom]

I never seriously thought he had a chance, no.

Regardless, there absolutely was the societal perception that he "had a chance."  While things like his great debate performance and the period where he led in the polls have been mentioned, there was a commonly held belief (mostly among conservatives, but that doesn't make it ill-founded) that the media and Democratic strategists were using flawed turnout models that didn't account for how uniquely minority-heavy the 2008 election was due to its historic nature. 

Many predicted that there would be a drop in minority turnout and a spike in White turnout (specifically White college grads and middle to upper-middle class Whites, groups that were at the time reliably Republican and turned out at much higher levels than other Democratic groups), leading to a "surprising" Romney victory that *the media* never saw coming.  I remember maps like this being floated regularly, and they weren't that hard to believe if we all take off our 20/20 hindsight glasses:

That's a 285-253 victory for the GOP.  Even if we apply hindsight to VA and CO being "gone," there were quite a few people that thought Romney could pull off Wisconsin, and a trade of those states still gets him a 273-265 victory.  Again, this is about perception, and I vividly remember that a lot of people thought this was going to be a much closer election than it ended up being, and I don't think we should let hindsight (not saying you are, just a general note) cloud our memories too much ... when we look at the actual margins and think, "Wow, Obama won VA, CO, PA, NH and IA by 4%+," we fail to put ourselves back in that time when frankly a lot of people thought 2012 would look closer to 2004 than 2008.