The Official Obama Approval Ratings Thread
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Vepres
Junior Chimp
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« Reply #875 on: May 24, 2009, 11:39:50 AM »

I was referring to states Obama didn't win already. I also doubt Obama can do much better in Georgia, he maxed out the black vote, and still lost by 5 points.

If he does two points better nationally then why can't he take Georgia?
Also, in four years blacks and Hispanics will be an even bigger part of the electorate in the state.
And old time segragationists will be even less. 

Yes, but I think that IF the GOP turns down the anti-immigrant rhetoric (which they appear to have been doing, but we'll see when the President tackles immigrant reform) Hispanics will vote for the Republicans in much the same way they did for Bush in 2004. As for blacks, their turnout will likely be down, and I could see about 5% or so defecting towards Republicans now that we have a black president (typically, 10% vote Republican, not 3%). So that would balance out the lessening of the racist vote.


Pray tell what "southern" state would Romney lose. McCain wasn't exactly southern himself.

Virginia (which might not be particularly Southern anymore, but it would be enough)
Florida
North Carolina
Georgia (heavy military presence helped McCain as it won't help Romney)

So far I can't see Obama losing Virginia to any imaginable GOP candidate in 2012 except in the aftermath of political disaster, category self-inflicted.

.... Anything else beyond those indicates a landslide.

I see no indication that Romney can win as much of the poor white vote as did McCain -- a large vote in the South, and one critical to GOP success in recent years. Romney is just as much a d@mnyankee as Obama, but in 2012 Obama will be the d@mnyankee that they know. Besides, if Obama does good for poor Southern blacks, he will also do good for poor Southern whites.  He will be running for re-election as President -- not to be some white person's in-law.

Mitt Romney will have to explain his religion; Joe Lieberman had to do that, too, and that didn't help Gore in 2000. Mormonism is about as exotic in the South as is Judaism.

I think they will warm up to the Mormonism as the campaign goes on. I think Romney could win all of those, though I think he will have the hardest time in North Carolina. He may do better in Virginia than North Carolina, though I think he would win or lose them together.
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Devilman88
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« Reply #876 on: May 25, 2009, 04:42:10 PM »
« Edited: May 27, 2009, 08:14:21 AM by ♠♣♦Dan♦♣♠ »

I went back and will show the trends month by month of Obama's approval ratings. (Green approve, Blue Disapprove)

January 09





February 09





March 09




April 09





May 09 (So far)

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pbrower2a
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« Reply #877 on: May 25, 2009, 08:21:31 PM »

Allowing a distinction for Congressional districts in Maine and Nebraska:




 I round up 6-9 to the next ten for anything above 55%, so that may be some difference. .
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Magic 8-Ball
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« Reply #878 on: May 26, 2009, 12:47:05 PM »

While I find the idea of Obama winning Georgia and Utah unlikely, I was one of the people in 2007 who disregarded polls that had "Generic Democrat" defeating "Generic Republican" by something like 10 points.

Obama may have net positive support in both states, but it's difficult to tell how strong it would be once the country is in election mode.
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pbrower2a
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« Reply #879 on: May 26, 2009, 02:54:56 PM »

While I find the idea of Obama winning Georgia and Utah unlikely, I was one of the people in 2007 who disregarded polls that had "Generic Democrat" defeating "Generic Republican" by something like 10 points.

Obama may have net positive support in both states, but it's difficult to tell how strong it would be once the country is in election mode.

Indeed the model may grossly understate the chance that Obama wins some states as much as it grossly overestimates a reasonable assessment of the chance of Obama winning such states as Utah or Alabama. I think that Obama has more of a chance to win Colorado (he did in 2008, of course) than some states in which the most recent poll gives Obama as much as a 60% or so approval rating. Likewise Arizona, where the demographics suggest that Obama would have won Arizona against any GOP nominee other than McCain. I think that he even has more of a chance of winning Texas than of winning Utah...

I can think of circumstances in which Obama wins Utah -- circumstances far from having materialized, of course.

But if Obama is getting strong positive approval in a bunch of Southern states, then that suggests that unless the GOP nominates someone with an obvious connection to the region (the area seems almost homogeneous in its politics, then the GOP stands to lose more of the South than Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida. Let's remember that Obama got clobbered in Southern states not on the Atlantic Coast -- not that the GOP nominee won't need Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida.

If I were a GOP figure trying to win the Presidency from Obama, then I would find his approval ratings portending a huge loss in 2012. Think about the Mid-South; although no state is individually a big prize (Georgia isn't in that group), the group itself holds 38 electoral votes if one excludes Kentucky. Should Obama win most of that group (which includes unpolled Mississippi), then Obama surely wins Kentucky and Missouri as well... and with no other major changes for Obama, that suggests an Eisenhower-scale landslide. Other than that the only hope for a GOP win of the Presidency is something going very bad for Obama.

God help us if that catastrophe involves North Korea.   

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change08
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« Reply #880 on: May 26, 2009, 03:24:38 PM »

NC: 2010 Senate (PPP-5/19-21)

Public Policy Polling (D)
5/19-21/09; 798 registered voters, 3.5% margin of error
Mode: IVR

North Carolina

Obama Job Approval
51% Approve, 42% Disapprove

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/PPP_Release_NC_526.pdf
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Magic 8-Ball
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« Reply #881 on: May 26, 2009, 05:37:03 PM »

While I find the idea of Obama winning Georgia and Utah unlikely, I was one of the people in 2007 who disregarded polls that had "Generic Democrat" defeating "Generic Republican" by something like 10 points.

Obama may have net positive support in both states, but it's difficult to tell how strong it would be once the country is in election mode.

Indeed the model may grossly understate the chance that Obama wins some states as much as it grossly overestimates a reasonable assessment of the chance of Obama winning such states as Utah or Alabama. I think that Obama has more of a chance to win Colorado (he did in 2008, of course) than some states in which the most recent poll gives Obama as much as a 60% or so approval rating. Likewise Arizona, where the demographics suggest that Obama would have won Arizona against any GOP nominee other than McCain. I think that he even has more of a chance of winning Texas than of winning Utah...

I think that if Obama is reelected, even in a 50/50 scenario, he will win with Colorado.  The state party has made such huge gains over the past four or five years, that it's hard to see him win without it.

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We'll see.
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Devilman88
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« Reply #882 on: May 26, 2009, 05:54:28 PM »

pbrower2a, approval ratings doesn't mean votes. Get that, and stop trying to say because someone approves of Obama they will vote for him.
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Democratic Hawk
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« Reply #883 on: May 26, 2009, 06:22:20 PM »

pbrower2a, approval ratings doesn't mean votes. Get that, and stop trying to say because someone approves of Obama they will vote for him.

On the other hand, of course, disapproval ratings don't necessarily mean votes against. In 2004, 9% of those who approved of Bush (53%) voted for Kerry, while 6% of those who didn't (46%) voted for Bush
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Devilman88
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« Reply #884 on: May 26, 2009, 06:23:59 PM »

pbrower2a, approval ratings doesn't mean votes. Get that, and stop trying to say because someone approves of Obama they will vote for him.

On the other hand, of course, disapproval ratings don't necessarily mean votes against. In 2004, 9% of those who approved of Bush voted for Kerry, while 6% of those who didn't voted for Bush

You are right, you can't us approval ratings to see if someone will win a state.
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pbrower2a
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« Reply #885 on: May 26, 2009, 06:46:34 PM »
« Edited: May 27, 2009, 12:09:36 AM by pbrower2a »

pbrower2a, approval ratings doesn't mean votes. Get that, and stop trying to say because someone approves of Obama they will vote for him.

It is more my temptation to see the 2008 vote as an approval rating of sorts.

So far those ratings are all that we have. Surely some of us would take notice if Obama had approval ratings of 35% in North Carolina or 52% in New York State; such would indicate huge trouble. Approval isn't the same as a "vote for". Obama would lose to Romney in Utah even with an approval rating of 65% and to Huckabee in Arkansas with a similar approval rating in Arkansas. George Herbert Walker Bush had fairly high approval ratings going into the 1992 election; those of his son were mediocre. Go figure.

I see this: those who disapprove of the performance of an incumbent President are unlikely to vote for him unless the opponent has the perception of a bird commonly served as dinner on Thanksgiving Day.

Who gets the GOP nomination will decide whether Obama wins certain states... and with statewide approval ratings as they are, the nominee may win some in contest and lose some in contest. I see no evidence that Obama is vulnerable in any State that he won in 2008 by at least 5%, and winning those states would be enough in 2012.  He will disappoint people with some of his choices.

This may be a more important question: can Obama maintain these approval ratings? If he can't, then how much can he lose and still win?

Huge differences exist for approval ratings between Obama and all four of these GOP candidates: Huckabee, Palin, Romney, and Gingrich. When asked to choose whether one would choose Obama over one or the other, then people nationwide answer the nationwide "would you vote for him/her?" is in the 50's for Obama and that for the Republican is in the 30's. Among the Republicans, Huckabee does best... with about 40% of the likely vote, and Gingrich does very badly -- in the mid-30s. Romney and Palin are somewhere in between. "Don't know" is as high as 10% or so.

It now looks as if Obama would beat any of them handily -- maybe not with 60% of the vote except perhaps against Gingrich. Of course that says nothing about such people as Tom Ridge and Bobby Jindal who are not offered as alternatives.

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Zarn
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« Reply #886 on: May 26, 2009, 07:06:42 PM »

If you have the following:

Election day approval rating of each state
Election day vote percentage of each state
Current approval rating of each state

Then you can come up with:

Educated guess of the current vote percentage

If you want better, you would have to find a way to compare the 2008 McCain/ Palin ticket to any potential 2012 Republican tickets.
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Dan the Roman
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« Reply #887 on: May 26, 2009, 08:45:26 PM »

If you have the following:

Election day approval rating of each state
Election day vote percentage of each state
Current approval rating of each state

Then you can come up with:

Educated guess of the current vote percentage

If you want better, you would have to find a way to compare the 2008 McCain/ Palin ticket to any potential 2012 Republican tickets.

The latter I think is impossible. McCain/Palin was a unique combination of two very different candidates who may very well have attracted with one part of the ticket the part that was attracted by the other. How many people came out for McCain due to Palin who would not have come out for McCain/Romney? How many voted for McCain because of his reputation in spite of disliking Palin?
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Zarn
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« Reply #888 on: May 26, 2009, 09:34:24 PM »

I never said it would be easy.

Some states are more populistic (Ohio), some more libertarian (Arizona), some more liberal (Rhode Island), and some more conservative (Mississippi). It would be very rough estimation.
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Tender Branson
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« Reply #889 on: May 26, 2009, 11:45:47 PM »

New York (Siena Research Institute, May 18-21)Sad

72% Favorable
23% Unfavorable

http://www.siena.edu/uploadedFiles/Home/Parents_and_Community/Community_Page/SRI/SNY_Poll/SNY0509%20Crosstabs_Final_2.pdf
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Eraserhead
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« Reply #890 on: May 26, 2009, 11:49:22 PM »

I bet we'll get some polls focusing on Obama's approval among hispanics post-Sotomayor.
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Tender Branson
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« Reply #891 on: May 27, 2009, 12:02:06 AM »

Michigan (EPIC-MRA, May 18-21)Sad

Overall, how would you rate the job being done by Barack Obama as President -- would you give him a positive rating of excellent or pretty good, or a negative rating of just fair or poor?

61% Total Positive
37% Total Negative

http://www.wxyz.com/content/news/seenon7priority/story/EXCLUSIVE-POLL-Michigan-on-Wrong-Track/EXSk_1_-p0u-ZwRskF-pZg.cspx
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Tender Branson
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« Reply #892 on: May 27, 2009, 12:48:47 PM »

Connecticut (Quinnipiac University)

71% Approve
22% Disapprove

From May 20 - 25, Quinnipiac University surveyed 1,575 Connecticut registered voters with a margin of error of +/- 2.5 percentage points.

http://www.quinnipiac.edu/x1296.xml?ReleaseID=1301
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Holmes
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« Reply #893 on: May 27, 2009, 06:00:27 PM »

Rhode Island (Brown University Taubman Center for Public Policy)

How would you rate the job Barack Obama is doing as president?
Excellent 36%
Good 38%
Only fair 16%
Poor 7%
Don’t know 2%
No answer 1%

The poll was conducted May 18-20 with a random sample of 593 registered voters statewide. Overall, the margin of error was plus or minus about 4 percentage points.

http://news.brown.edu/pressreleases/2009/05/survey
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pbrower2a
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« Reply #894 on: May 27, 2009, 06:14:31 PM »

Change in two states (MI, down for Obama; RI, up):





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Lief 🗽
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« Reply #895 on: May 27, 2009, 08:13:03 PM »


Removed the numbers to make the smaller states easier to see. Smiley
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pbrower2a
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« Reply #896 on: May 27, 2009, 10:17:26 PM »


Removed the numbers to make the smaller states easier to see. Smiley

Thank you; that was a good idea. We don't know what the electoral vote counts will be for individual states. 
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Fmr. Pres. Duke
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« Reply #897 on: May 27, 2009, 10:17:45 PM »


I agree. There's about a zero chance that Obama wins states like LA (lol), TN, KY, WV or the western district of NE. AR is also unwinnable. SD and ND are becoming more favorable, but still lean Republican. But a Huckabee has a greater chance to lose them than, let's say a Romney has.

That map is already obsolete due to later polls. This is my more recent map, and in it I have exchanged white for yellow because yellow shows electoral votes better than does white:



Projection:
Navy -- Generic Republican strong (10% or more)
Blue  -- Generic Republican weak   (5 - 9.9%)
Pale blue -- Generic Republican, barely (under 5%)
Yellow -- Undeterminable or toss-up
Pink -- Obama, barely (under 5%)
Red -- weak Obama (5-9.9%)
Deep red -- strong Obama (10% or more)

For example, Nevada has been polled. It consolidates my assessment that anything that Obama won by 10% or more in 2008 is out of reach, and I need not wait for Maine, Vermont, or Maryland.

A more recent poll for Oklahoma suggests what about everyone reasonably thinks -- that Obama can be defeated there by about a 60-40 margin even if he wins nationwide at a 60-40 spread. I saw a poll for Alabama that gives Obama a 58% approval rating... not that I fully believe it.  But I have cause to believe that a 56% positive rating in Virginia is genuine, as that is close to the vote for Obama in 2008, and that is enough to put Virginia in the "solid Obama" category. West Virginia gave Obama about a 60% approval rating, suggesting that the depiction of Obama as an environmental extremist out to 'punish coal' may be unfounded. If the GOP won on that canard in 2008 and it remains a canard in 2012, then Obama wins West Virginia.

The Alabama poll suggests that some of those surprisingly-high ratings in some of the southeastern and south-central states in which Obama got clobbered in 2008 are genuine.  It's hard for me to believe that Obama is viewed more positively in Alabama than in Georgia -- but such reflects the latest polls. It could be an outlier. But note well -- the "Mid-South" (AL, AR, KY, LA, MS, and TN) is several states that generally move together in recent years. Those states may be easier to figure than Texas, which has no political analogue. Mississippi has yet to be polled, so I guess.

How could Obama be more popular in the South now than on November 4, 2008? He might not be. Those states have a strong heritage of admiration for the military, and they may have voted for McCain because of that heritage. McCain will not be the GOP nominee in 2012, and none of the likely GOP nominees has any military record.

I think that Mike Huckabee picks up all states of the South not on the Atlantic coast, and that if he is a VP candidate, he still wins Arkansas if not all other such states. But he has to get the nomination to do that. Romney and Palin have no connections to the South.

I don't know which to believe about Alabama: the 38% vote for Obama, the recent 48% approval rating, or the current 58% approval rating.  An average suggests a toss-up. Nebraska? At-large, Nebraska was in between South Dakota and Kansas, and the 62% approval rating for NE-02 suggests a gain in NE-01. Districts of Nebraska are shown left-to-right with an increasing number to the right, which is geographically absurd for Nebraska. NE-03 is one of the most right-wing congressional districts in America, and I have it as "Strong (generic) Republican". It offers the surest electoral vote or votes for a generic Republican. NE-01? More GOP-leaning than NE-02, but Nebraska went for McCain only by 13%, and NE-03 went for something like thirty. NE-01 and NE at large are thus undecided.

Of course it looks very hopeful for Obama, suggesting an Eisenhower-scale, if not Reagan-scale or LBJ-scale, landslide in 2012. It suggests that Obama will win everything that he won in 2008 except Colorado at least firmly, and everything that was close. The southern states are daring.

 

 



Do you believe anything you say? Or do you just try to paint the rosiest picture possible for your candidate?
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pbrower2a
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« Reply #898 on: May 28, 2009, 11:28:17 AM »
« Edited: May 28, 2009, 09:06:52 PM by pbrower2a »



Do you believe anything you say? Or do you just try to paint the rosiest picture possible for your candidate?

No, I do not believe it fully. Note that I have qualifications in my prediction.

Obama could lose a state or two in which he has a 55%-60% approval rating, but he won't lose a raft of them. He's not going to win Oklahoma, where his approval rating is in the thirties. But it is clear that the Blue Firewall is intact, at least according to opinion polls, and Obama will have to have a catastrophic Presidency to lose it. He is above 60% approval in every state that he won by 9% or more... except Maine, Vermont, Maryland, DC, and Hawaii.  Do you want to bet that if polls came out from any of those that they wouldn't show approval ratings above 60%?  Such is how they voted.

What can't I predict? Obama's approval ratings in November 2012 will determine whether he wins or loses.  What could be simpler? If he is effective and does good he wins. How much? Who knows? Should he be an effective President and face a GOP who either has serious flaws as a campaigner, can be depicted as an extremist, or can be linked to some corruption, then Obama wins in a landslide. I could have said the same of Nixon in 1969 or Reagan in 1981. Should Obama fail as President, then we will see that in approval ratings.  Can he fail as President? He has plenty of time in which to do so. 

We just can't know, can we?  I can't predict who the GOP nominee could be in 2012 except that it won't be "Generic Republican", as nobody goes by that name. If it is Huckabee, then Huckabee will likely win the whole South except perhaps Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida. Romney fares better in some states unlikely to matter in 2012, but unless Obama has an inept Presidency that only means that the votes even out between the states -- giving Obama a landslide in the Electoral College even with a 52-47 split of the popular vote (I figure that Romney would do badly in the South). It gets worse for Palin and Gingrich. Romney would do better than Huckabee in Montana and the Dakotas and might shave Obama's margins of victory in some Northern states -- only to gain little in electoral votes. 

Maybe the most effective GOP nominee would be Charlie Crist or Tom Ridge. I don't know; I have seen no differential polls discerning whether Obama is more popular than either.

The 2012 prediction is about as serious as pre-season predictions of baseball pennant races. In February they can freely predict that the Baltimore Orioles have the New Mickey Mantle ... and by May we find that that prospect so praised in February has so many holes in his swing that he is hitting .225 with 3 home runs, makes lots of errors in the field, has been benched, and by June is back in the minors. In October people have other things in mind in baseball, like the playoffs and the World Series, and if the Orioles lost 95 games in the regular season, nobody cares. Baseball fans in places like St. Louis may be paying attention to a .275-hitting shortstop and a sinkerball pitcher who has been around for twelve years.

OK -- I base my map on an assumption that the 2008 election says much about Barack Obama as a campaigner and a politician. Incumbency is a an overpowering asset to a President who seems to do the job well even if his Presidency has induced "hidden damage" that can do great harm to America. If everything remains the same in 2012 as in 2008, then Obama probably ends up with a victory similar in scale to that of 2008.

Of course things will be different -- McCain won't be running in 2012, the economy is in a condition unlikely to be frozen until 2012, and there will be international events. The best evidence of change in events will be approval polls -- and if Obama were getting approvals around 47% in Wisconsin or Pennsylvania with 49% disapproval, then I would show those states as likely losses for Obama. But what can I do if Obama has an approval rating of 58% in Alabama? That suggests change in political realities in Alabama.

I find it hard to believe that Obama is doing so well in the South -- but the polls are consistent, and if those for a bunch of states similar in political tendencies concur, then I have no cause to believe otherwise. If Obama's approval remains as it is in those states, then he has no chance of losing them by double-digit margins in 2012 as he did in 2008. Sure, it's counter-intuitive -- but truth is often counter-intuitive. Obama will be running on his record in 2012 and not on promises.

Contrast Oklahoma, where Obama's approval rating is in the thirties. My prediction map shows Obama getting clobbered there no matter who the GOP nominee is. Mississippi? It looks better for the GOP than any other Southern state -- only because it hasn't been polled.

My model (a/k/a predictive map) suggests that Obama would lose Arizona and barely scrape by in Colorado -- also counter-intuitive.  Models do that at times.

... In any event the so-called Blue Firewall is intact, with Obama likely to have 290 (which in this model includes Virginia, Nevada, and Ohio among them) or so electoral votes locked up barring catastrophe. That will be enough for a close win, and the rest will at most shape the "character" of the win. For the GOP to get its Presidential nominee elected in 2012, much must change, including the proclivity of eighteen states and DC to vote indiscriminately for Democratic nominees in every Presidential election after 1988.

Also, there will be some interesting Senate races in 2010.  Florida and Ohio have open seats, and apparently Senators  Vitter (R-LA), Thune (R-SD), Murkowski (R-AK), and Bunning (R-KY) will have difficult times defending their seats. The only Democratic Senator in apparent difficulty is Bennet (D-CO). We will have a much better indication how some of those states will vote in 2012 -- in November 2010.  We will also have more arguments, too.   

   
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Devilman88
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« Reply #899 on: May 28, 2009, 11:44:50 AM »

Obama's approval ratings in November 2012 will determine whether he wins or loses.

Wrong.  Approval ratings have no direct relationship with the percentage of the vote a candidate gets.  This is completely different than predicting baseball because there are no absolute precedents, just relative precedents.  In politics there is no such thing as definite causation.  You can never predict the future in politics because even if you were to somehow know what Obama is going to do and how people have reacted to that in the past, it will never be the same as anything that has happened.  There are too many variables.  That's why peoples' predictions on election day are sometimes wildly off.  Predicting now, especially based on approval ratings, is the most asinine and ridiculous notion in politics.  There is no other reason but hackery to seriously suggest that Obama will win West Virginia, Kentucky, and Louisiana.

I agree, but he doesn't see it that way.
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