Obama Will Win Today

The President of the United States of America is determined by a majority of votes in the Electoral College. The College has 538 electors: one for each senator (100), congressman (435) and three for the District of Columbia (Washington), which is not a state. Thus, to guarantee the presidency, a candidate needs 270 Electoral College votes, although it is possible to win with less if more than two candidates receive votes.

Candidates other than the Republican and Democratic party nominees receiving votes in 2012's Electoral College is extremely unlikely. In fact, it last happened in the 1972 election when the Libertarian Party’s John Hospers received one vote. However, this was due to a Virginia elector pledged to Nixon reneging and voting for Hospers.

Prior to the 1970’s, strong third candidates were not uncommon. In 1968, Alabama segregationist George Wallace received 46 Electoral College votes after winning Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia. In 1960, Virginian Harry F. Byrd received 15 College votes when electors from Alabama and Mississippi refused to vote for John F. Kennedy.

The prospect of such events occurring in the 2012 election are remote, so if we allocate the 538 College votes amongst Obama and Romney, whoever gets to 270 will be the president.

In the US Constitution, each state decides its own method of choosing its allocated number of electors. The original theory was that each state would allocate College delegates / electors by congressional district and senate seats, so that the president would be chosen by a parliamentary majority.

Now, 48 of the 50 states, plus Washington DC operate on a winner takes all basis: whoever wins the popular vote in that state secures all its electors. Only Maine (4) and Nebraska (5) allocate their electors on the basis of congressional districts, so could in theory split, as Nebraska did in 2008 when one delegate voted for Obama.

Many Republican supporters are still talking up Mitt Romney’s chances, but analyst Nate Silver, who uses econometric forecasting models, called it for Obama weeks ago. He says that most voters have already made up their minds and the economic variables with predictive power have all trended toward Obama in the past couple of months.

Since only Maine and Nebraska don’t operate on a winner take all system, we can start by listing all the solidly pro Democrat and pro Republican states and add up their electors.

The west coast: California, Oregon, Washington, plus Hawaii are all solidly Democrat. That’s 78 votes. The north east: Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Washington DC and Pennsylvania will all be won by Obama. That’s another 112 votes. The Great Lakes states: Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin will also be Obama wins, giving him another 56 votes. That’s 246 so far.

There is talk that Romney might have a chance in Pennsylvania, but I don’t believe it and neither does Nate Silver. People were also talking up Romney’s chances in Maine. The state is full of rich, white people, so theoretically it should be Republican, but Maine has been fairly solidly liberal Democrat since 1992.

Which states will Romney definitely win? All the conservative ones in the middle and the south: Arizona, Utah, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, North & South Dakota, Nebraska (I’m allocating all 5 electors to Romney), Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, North and South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia and Indiana, plus Alaska. Lots of states, but most of them are small. Only 206 votes in total.

So, there are 86 electors in 7 states which might go either way: Nevada (6), Colorado (9), New Mexico (5), Iowa (6), Ohio (18), Virginia (13) and Florida (29).

If Obama wins Florida, he’s home, but I don’t think he will. If he does, he’ll probably win all 7 of these states, except maybe Virginia. Some pundits are saying Obama is a good chance to retain Virginia, because of the spread of Washington DC west across the Potomac into places like Arlington and Fairfax, but I’m not so sure it’s enough to counter the anti Obama rural white voters in the south and west of the state.

If Obama wins Ohio, he only needs Nevada or Iowa, or New Mexico and one other. If he does win Ohio, the mood in America will probably be sufficient to see this happen.

There almost certainly won’t be a situation like in 2000 when the vanity of Ralph Nader pulled votes from Al Gore and delivered Florida and hence the presidency to George W Bush. The Greens running wouldn’t have caused a problem in a country like Australia, where we have optional preferential voting. But in the US presidential elections, it’s first past the post. Thus Nader and the Greens drew enough left wing voters away from Gore to allow Bush to sneak in. With typically delusional Green vanity, Nader didn't seem to accept that he'd helped his Republican enemy and maybe not running in just a few states might have helped the cause.

So what does Fingo think the result will be?

I believe Romney is a good chance to win Florida, Virginia, Colorado and an outside chance in Iowa. That would get him to 263 and Obama 275. That’s the best I reckon he can do.

On top of Romney’s crazy plan to cut income tax for the top tax bracket and swinging voters’ quite reasonable suspicion of the religious right, almost everything has been going right for Obama in the last few weeks: mostly favourable economic data, a better debate performance and Hurricane Sandy.

Sandy was positive for Obama: he looked presidential in the way he dealt with the crisis (cf George Bush and Hurricane Katrina). Additionally, most people don’t like change during a crisis. There will be some swing voters who respond emotionally by feeling that the country should rally around its leader to help those affected and repair the damage.

There’s also the problem for Romney that he’s perceived as a bit of a chameleon. It’s like he’s using business management strategies to first solve the problem of getting elected, then he’ll try to solve the problems of the economy. One gets the sense that he sees the two issues as more distinct than voters see them ie. your plan to fix the economy should be what gets you elected. Other than Mormonism and free enterprise, it’s a little hard to discern what Romney really stands for.

Fingo’s tip: most likely is 281 - 257 Obama, possibly as close as 275 - 263 and possibly as wide as 303 - 235.

One of the stupidest elements of this whole election is that whoever wins will likely face either a hostile House of Representatives or a hostile Senate.

All 435 members of the House of Representatives are up for re-election today and it looks very much like the Republicans will maintain a working majority, of probably at least 30 seats. This will maintain the hostile House which Obama has had to face since the mid term elections of 2010.

What's really stupid is that only 33 of 100 senators are up for re-election. The remaining 67 represent the electoral mood 2 or 4 years ago. It appears likely the Democrats will retain a slight majority, so if Romney wins, he will probably face a hostile Senate, although Republican control of both houses is a possibility.

Control of both houses is only a realistic possibility for the Republicans, which would in some sense make it more logical to elect Romney, since he can then work with parliament (and is really a lot more centrist than he pretended to be in order to win the Republican nomination). However it is unlikely most American voters would even grasp this, let alone it enter their voting deliberations.

Who would Fingo vote for?

Since it's first past the post ie. no chance to allocate preferences, neither of them. I'd vote for Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson. A vote for liberty is never wasted!

Update:

It looks like Obama has won all 7 of the above mentioned marginal states, for a 332 - 206 victory. Winning Florida was a sign that the mood of undecided voters had swung sufficiently behind Obama that he would win all of the other 6 marginal states as well. Only Ohio and Virginia were even close. He won Colorado by around 4%.

I thought Romney would scrape a win in Florida. Nate Silver correctly called all 50 states, demonstrating the power of "gay" econometric analysis over Dean Chambers' ideological boofheadery. Silver had Obama a 50.3% chance of winning Florida, so even he thought it was a coin toss.

Looking at the district polling numbers for Virginia, you can see the largest districts are what are now effectively the western suburbs of Washington DC. This is where Obama won Virginia. As Washington grows, a lot of its expansion will be in this area, so Virginia should become more and more of a Democrat state.

Finally, the Democrats have picked up two Senate seats, increasing their majority to 53 - 47. One of them is Indiana, where the ridiculous Richard Mourdock was turfed out, despite the state going to Romney after supporting Obama in 2008.

However, the Republicans have retained a solid majority in the House. Although this makes Obama's legislative program more difficult, it will help rein in spending in return for giving up tax cuts. Be prepared for an inability to reach a policy compromise before the US goes over the fiscal cliff. I wouldn't be holding many long positions in equities for a while. Cash is a pretty good place to be right now.

And Gary Johnson? He was the highest placed minor candidate, with about 1% of the popular vote. Keep fighting the good fight, Gary!