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2021 Election

Like any patriotic American, I've gotten absolutely sick of hearing about the presidential election. The media has the onerous job of making the whole ordeal climactic until the bitter end, but as anyone who has read a poll can tell you, the president pretty much has the whole thing in the bag. Political pundits are still referring to states like Ohio as "battleground" or "swing states" when in reality the president has always been in the lead and has now solidified his lead by as many as 10 percentage points. It's the same phony media hype that we all had to go through several months ago when everyone was pretending that Santorum, Gingrich or even Paul had a real shot at winning the Republican nomination. Of course no one would watch if we didn't feel like our lives were at stake.

At risk of sounding pompous, to the side is my prediction of what the presidential electoral map is going to look like. Obama carries Ohio, Florida, Virginia and Iowa as not to too much surprise and Romney manages to take North Carolina (which is the only state I'm not too sure about at this time). RCP is calling NC for Obama as well, but I trust the markets at Intrade more which is giving Romney a 57% chance of victory there (as a comparison the market gives Obama an 80% chance of taking Ohio).

In this map Obama/Biden score 332 electoral votes and Romney/Ryan come out with only 206. At this point even if Romney and Ryan won Florida and Ohio, they'd still fall short of winning the necessary 270. Now as minute good news for the Republicans, it does seem like they'll at least manage to take Indiana and (again maybe) North Carolina both of which they lost in 2008.

Now a critical observer might quip, "Clearly you're giving the president too much wiggle room; you gave him nearly all of the swing states!" To which I would say, "That's because any poll or prediction market could tell you that they aren't really swing states and if they were Obama would still have a significant lead." Let's put it this way, Intrade is predicting an Obama victory in Ohio at the same percent likelihood of Romney taking Mississippi; if we continuously call states with reasonably solid leads "swing states" we might as well put Texas, Louisiana and Georgia in that category as well. The media is trying to keep you excited and watching, but in reality, Obama will win unless he dies or is discovered to be a pedophile. If he happens to be one, let the record show that I broke the story.

The Actually Important Elections

What should be more interesting is the results of the coming congressional elections. Congressional elections however are generally more difficult to predict and monitor because even the voters have absolutely no idea whom they'll vote for before actually entering the booth and seeing whose names have (REPUBLICAN) and (DEMOCRAT) next to them.

It's absolutely true that the lawmakers we elect at the federal, state and local levels generally affect our lives far more tangibly than our presidents or governors, but importance and relevancy are not important factors for most people in making electoral decisions.

Now the federal Senate is where there might be some action; if there are actually any Tea Party activists left roaming around the country, this would be the chance they wanted to "finish what they started" in 2010. Of course although Democrats were initially worried, it seems Republicans will pick up some seats, but not enough to make a majority.

Really the only senate race that has caught significant nation-wide attention is that between incumbent Republican Scott Brown and Elizabeth Warren. After the death of Ted Kennedy, Brown had managed to pick up his seat narrowly and although enjoyed reasonable polling for a while, seems to be losing the electoral upper hand to Warren.

Even if the Democrats can take back Kennedy's old place, they should expect to lose several more. Only several month ago, forecasters were predicting a Republican seizure of the Senate, but that seems less likely now, with the Republicans picking up only one or two seats as of now. We should expect the Senate to remain inert, but that's not anything too new.

Calling the results of the House elections are even rougher because generally they rely heavily on what sections of the electorate shows up to vote for president or other more noticeable offices. The gains of either side should be connected to the extent their supporters show up. Theoretically the Democrats could take the House back (such is the nature of biennial elections) but that seems to be incredibly far-fetched at this point. Intrade is forecasting about a 73% chance of the Republicans retaining their control of the House.

So to sum up:

Provided this election cycle won't be perturbed by any magical black swans, we can expect a pretty inconsequential shift in the political environment. There were some pretty interesting points of note however: Republican voters (for some strange reason) no longer distrust Mormons as presidential candidates although others still hold old reservations towards them and the Democratic Party no longer flirts with silly platitudes like "civil unions" when talking about their now explicit support for gay marriage. In lieu of disaster it looks like 2012 will hardly be a climactic end of the world.

19 October: Update

So the big news has been that after a comparatively strong showing at the first debate, Mitt Romney has managed to pick up a lot of unsuspected traction. Florida seems to have shifted consistently in his favor, as has North Carolina. Virginia and Colorado seem to be up in the air, but with Iowa and Ohio still firmly in his grasp, the president is still in a stable position to keep the White House; Intrade is forecasting an electoral victory if 292 points by Obama.

Of course that's a pretty pathetic squeak to the finish for the president, but Romney seems to have a lot more appeal to independent voters than expected. Independents seem to be a lot less impressed by the Obama campaign's corny efforts to propagate fear about the Romney platform, but then again that's what they have to do when the Republican Party is always more emotionally (and intellectually) connected with "mainstream" America.

7 November Post-Election Update

Of course for all the typical hype, election night came as a sizable bore as usual, waiting until the middle of the night to see any conclusive calls on the states of importance. Polls and prediction markets originally seemed to be indicating at least a Romney victory in Florida, but the president seemed to have succeeded in sweeping all of the swing states save North Carolina (conveniently and perfectly matching my prediction late September): 332 Obama/Biden - 206 Romney/Ryan. Of course the final tallies are yet to be had, but it seems difficult for Romney to sneak ahead anywhere.

The votes in the legislature seem to be proceeding with the same expectation: no fundamental changes in governership. Also it's interesting to note that Puerto Rico, although not all votes have been counted, seems to have a good chance of electing for statehood, but only time will tell.

Lastly, why is Nate Silver getting all this press for his prediction when his record isn't as good as scrib.info? Last time I checked I predicted 50/50 states correctly while poor Nate could only get 49!