2012 election pregame

dfs · 2012-11-05T07:33:25.000Z

rhinohelix:

I wouldn’t want to have an Ohio area phone number the next three days. Combine that with the 16(!) emails I have gotten from various Democratic organizations in the last 48 hours and its a recipe for madness.

We’ve been pretty much trained to not answer the phone.
I don’t even hear my ringtone anymore.

The problems will start on Wednesday when I will need to start answering it again.

triggercut · 2012-11-05T07:39:48.000Z

So.

No one in Colorado today. Last visit by a candidate was Obama last night. The flight is likely too costly in terms of hours today to take.
Romney’s “expand the map” is done. One trip to Philly yesterday (good luck with that), but he’s spent the last week in Florida, Ohio, Colorado, Ohio, Florida, New Hampshire, Virginia, Ohio, Florida, and Virginia.
Obama spends his last week in Wisconsin, Colorado, Nevada, Ohio, Florida, Ohio, New Hampshire, Virginia, Colorado, Ohio, Wisconsin, Ohio, Iowa.
I think over the last week Obama essentially conceded North Carolina and Florida to Romney. That’s the equivalent of going into a prevent defense. Very un-aggressive. (Contrast with 2008 when Obama’s last three campaign stops were in Orlando FL, Charlotte NC, and finally Manassas VA–all three traditional GOP areas. That’s aggressive.) We’ll see if Obama turtling up in the last week works.
By contrast, Romney’s claims that he was going to expand the map in the last week was nonsense, and forced him to take a trip he probably didn’t need to do in Philly yesterday. Not a good event. “Expanding the map” was a head-fake, but it may have worked: Obama did 2 appearances in Florida post-Sandy, but hasn’t been to North Carolina in forever; seems like his campaign unnecessarily wrote off NC back in September, and I think they’ll look at early voting numbers there and realize they should’ve been down there.
Romney didn’t really take advantage of his own head-fake, I don’t think. He put Obama playing on O’s home turf–which is what he wanted–but then Romney kind of turtled up on his own home turf, too. A Romney path to victory that doesn’t include Ohio has to include Iowa, Wisconsin, Nevada, and Colorado. By spending so much time in Florida and Virginia, his strategy appears to be based on shaky internals that showed him needing to shore those up and then praying for a miracle in the midwest.

36 hours from now, we’ll know a lot more…

WarrenM · 2012-11-05T07:40:48.000Z

Hugin

I’m having a hard time parsing that infographic but, yeah, it looks like it will take much less for Obama to win … am I reading that right?

WarrenM · 2012-11-05T07:43:31.000Z

trigger

What’s funny is that Obama may not have campaigned here in NC very much, but NPR was reporting this morning that the state is still a toss up poll wise. He might still pull it off…

Balasarius · 2012-11-05T07:46:44.000Z

WarrenM:

Hugin

I’m having a hard time parsing that infographic but, yeah, it looks like it will take much less for Obama to win … am I reading that right?

Correct. This graph is better -

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/11/02/us/politics/paths-to-the-white-house.html?smid=re-share

MrGrumpy · 2012-11-05T07:50:16.000Z

triggercut:

So.

No one in Colorado today. Last visit by a candidate was Obama last night. The flight is likely too costly in terms of hours today to take.

Romney’s “expand the map” is done. One trip to Philly yesterday (good luck with that), but he’s spent the last week in Florida, Ohio, Colorado, Ohio, Florida, New Hampshire, Virginia, Ohio, Florida, and Virginia.

Obama spends his last week in Wisconsin, Colorado, Nevada, Ohio, Florida, Ohio, New Hampshire, Virginia, Colorado, Ohio, Wisconsin, Ohio, Iowa.

I think over the last week Obama essentially conceded North Carolina and Florida to Romney. That’s the equivalent of going into a prevent defense. Very un-aggressive. (Contrast with 2008 when Obama’s last three campaign stops were in Orlando FL, Charlotte NC, and finally Manassas VA–all three traditional GOP areas. That’s aggressive.) We’ll see if Obama turtling up in the last week works.

By contrast, Romney’s claims that he was going to expand the map in the last week was nonsense, and forced him to take a trip he probably didn’t need to do in Philly yesterday. Not a good event. “Expanding the map” was a head-fake, but it may have worked: Obama did 2 appearances in Florida post-Sandy, but hasn’t been to North Carolina in forever; seems like his campaign unnecessarily wrote off NC back in September, and I think they’ll look at early voting numbers there and realize they should’ve been down there.

Romney didn’t really take advantage of his own head-fake, I don’t think. He put Obama playing on O’s home turf–which is what he wanted–but then Romney kind of turtled up on his own home turf, too. A Romney path to victory that doesn’t include Ohio has to include Iowa, Wisconsin, Nevada, and Colorado. By spending so much time in Florida and Virginia, his strategy appears to be based on shaky internals that showed him needing to shore those up and then praying for a miracle in the midwest.

36 hours from now, we’ll know a lot more…

Great information.
I think OFA has sent surrogates to N.C. (although I really hate lumping in Michelle Obama as a ‘surrogate’.) But that state has seen record voter turnout among the African American community. But I agree they probably regret that now (as Romney does not going to PA, MN earlier.)

I’m really, really hoping Obama carries VA and NH - will make OH superfluous (FL would too for that matter but not holding out much hope there).

CLWheeljack · 2012-11-05T07:51:29.000Z

Does campaigning in a state have much influence this close to the election? I’d think the primary benefit from rallies, etc. is amping up the faithful, who then go do the real work on the streets. But at this point, it seems like there isn’t much time for that to filter out. Anybody who’s going to be at the rally seems like they’re already convinced.

Timex · 2012-11-05T07:52:22.000Z

Ya, the one posted by Hugin isn’t actually correct… For instance, there are outcomes where Obama wins Ohio but doesn’t win the election. The NY Times one is better.

MrGrumpy · 2012-11-05T07:53:33.000Z

CLWheeljack:

Does campaigning in a state have much influence this close to the election? I’d think the primary benefit from rallies, etc. is amping up the faithful, who then go do the real work on the streets. But at this point, it seems like there isn’t much time for that to filter out. Anybody who’s going to be at the rally seems like they’re already convinced.

At yesterday’s NH rally Obama said as much - i.e. he’s a prop at this point.
It does fire up the volunteers though because in this election GOTV is (likely) going to determine the winner.

MrGrumpy · 2012-11-05T07:54:01.000Z

At yesterday’s NH rally Obama said as much - i.e. he’s a prop at this point.
It does fire up the volunteers though because in this election GOTV is (likely) going to determine the winner.

triggercut · 2012-11-05T07:57:11.000Z

CLWheeljack:

Does campaigning in a state have much influence this close to the election? I’d think the primary benefit from rallies, etc. is amping up the faithful, who then go do the real work on the streets. But at this point, it seems like there isn’t much time for that to filter out. Anybody who’s going to be at the rally seems like they’re already convinced.

At this point it’s a “fire up the base” kind of thing.

In any event, the Romney campaign clearly had Obama’s team deciding to play it very, very safe this last week.

Think of it as an RTS: Obama controls enough victory hexes to win, but his defenses on some of those are pretty weak. Romney’s only chance to win is to try to dislodge those defenses, but instead of doing so he turtles up in his own territory and runs a feint or two that’s easily swatted away. Game’s on a timer. That timer runs out at the end of the 7pm news cycle today and Romney will be sitting there with a ton of resources that could’ve been committed to an offensive that never got put into play.

triggercut · 2012-11-05T07:59:23.000Z

MrGrumpy:

Great information.
I think OFA has sent surrogates to N.C. (although I really hate lumping in Michelle Obama as a ‘surrogate’.) But that state has seen record voter turnout among the African American community. But I agree they probably regret that now (as Romney does not going to PA, MN earlier.)

I’m really, really hoping Obama carries VA and NH - will make OH superfluous (FL would too for that matter but not holding out much hope there).

Michelle is in NC, and the Bidens are in Loudoun VA today, while Bill Clinton is doing 4 stops in Pennsylvania. Obama’s last day is Wisconsin and Ohio, and then ending the night with Michelle in Des Moines. I sort of think that last stop is more of a symbolic one, although Iowa remains close. Iowa, however, was the improbable win in January of 2008 that began Obama’s momentum to the presidency, and I think that’s why he’s headed back.

Hugin · 2012-11-05T08:15:50.000Z

Timex:

Ya, the one posted by Hugin isn’t actually correct… For instance, there are outcomes where Obama wins Ohio but doesn’t win the election. The NY Times one is better.

The Infographic I posted isn’t designed to show every exotic possible outcome. It’s primarily interested in listing the states with early poll closing times that show up in a high number of winning scenario paths, for folks watching polling results coming in on TV election night who want to get a sense as early as possible of how things are going.

If Obama wins any of the first four states listed, it’s extremely likely he’ll win, and this will all be decided relatively early. It’ll take a series of losses heading across the chart to the right for Romney win scenarios to start activating.

Balasarius · 2012-11-05T08:27:42.000Z

Something I can’t quite figure out about this election is why OFA is so interested in my wife. Obama was coming to my home town, so we went to get tickets where we had to give them our information (and again at the event, probably). Since then they’ve called 4-5 times asking for my wife. One time they even stopped by the house. Always asking who she’s going to vote for. Once or twice they asked her to canvas. What’s odd is they never ask me, or even ask to speak to me. I wonder if they’re specifically focused on the women’s vote?

triggercut · 2012-11-05T08:29:02.000Z

Balasarius:

Something I can’t quite figure out about this election is why OFA is so interested in my wife. Obama was coming to my home town, so we went to get tickets where we had to give them our information (and again at the event, probably). Since then they’ve called 4-5 times asking for my wife. One time they even stopped by the house. Always asking who she’s going to vote for. Once or twice they asked her to canvas. What’s odd is they never ask me, or even ask to speak to me. I wonder if they’re specifically focused on the women’s vote?

That would be Roger Wilco.

BrianRubin · 2012-11-05T08:29:06.000Z

Why would the Orthopedic Foundation for Animals care about who your wife votes for?

Papageno · 2012-11-05T08:34:54.000Z

Man am I going to be disgusted if the RomneyTool 3000 somehow pulls this out.

WarrenM · 2012-11-05T08:36:45.000Z

Yeah, these graphics and Nate Silver have me all optimistic … It’ll be especially crushing now if it doesn’t work out.

BrianRubin · 2012-11-05T08:38:39.000Z

Papageno:

Man am I going to be disgusted if the RomneyTool 3000 somehow pulls this out.

I was looking for an image from Blazing Saddles but found this instead:

MrGrumpy · 2012-11-05T08:51:20.000Z

Balasarius:

Something I can’t quite figure out about this election is why OFA is so interested in my wife. Obama was coming to my home town, so we went to get tickets where we had to give them our information (and again at the event, probably). Since then they’ve called 4-5 times asking for my wife. One time they even stopped by the house. Always asking who she’s going to vote for. Once or twice they asked her to canvas. What’s odd is they never ask me, or even ask to speak to me. I wonder if they’re specifically focused on the women’s vote?

triggercut:

That would be Roger Wilco.

I get the same treatment as your wife by OFA. I’m male. My SO -female - does not. I’ve answered one Romney survey (I wasn’t even mean! but have not had any since.) I changed my registration in 08 from Independent to Democrat which might account for it.