Final Stretch Election ThreadFollow

That's too obvious to be deliberate. I'm guessing it's the work of a shitty panorama software stitch.


So....what's the latest polling showing? I'm seeing a lot of conservatives crowing online about leads.

Edited, Oct 26th 2012 4:30pm by Eske

Maybe they used iPhone's map app?

The copy with all the pink arrows shows evidence for it not being an innocent panoramic shot (intentional manipulation within the copied areas) but I'll let folks decide that for themselves.

Slight Romney lead in the national aggregates (well, 538 says O +0.2% today) but Obama leading in enough states to easily claim 270+. Most importantly, Obama leads in Ohio, Nevada, Iowa and Wisconsin. Ohio and Nevada have shown to be very resilient to shifting away from the president and early voting in both states has a big lead for him (around 60-40 in each state). Not that he'll win either state by 20 of course but banking a bunch of votes now lets the campaign concentrate on a more focused GOTV effort on election day and Obama has a strong campaign machine in both states (technically, Reid has a strong machine in NV; it's the one that helped to give him a surprisingly comfortable victory in 2010).


Edited, Oct 26th 2012 5:18pm by Jophiel

God Joph, you're so dense. The only votes that matter are Republican votes, and with those voters Romney is deadlocked with Obama.

It'll be close, but Romney has the momentum. It's interesting that folks keep talking about how Obama has a "slight lead" in the battleground states, but fail to mention that what is considered a battleground state today was considered safely Obama just a few weeks ago. The battleground states of the past are now leaning Romney. Ohio is still being stubborn, but Romney has closed a massive gap in that state. A couple weeks ago some analysts were speculating that Romney might have to abandon the state, but today it's a toss up. Also, I wouldn't crow too much about early voting in that state. Last time around, Obama had a massive lead in early voting. It's what helped him win the state. This time around, it's not nearly so much of a lead and it's among people who were likely to vote anyway, so you're basically stealing from election day to give the perception of a lead in early voting. I'd be nervous about Ohio if I were a Democrat.


In the past couple months, Romney has gone from having to run the table on battle ground states and pick up some leaning Obama to win, to having several combinations of up for grabs states that can net him the win. Ohio is still the 800lb gorilla, of course, but there have been some surprising swings of States Romney's way that most people weren't even expecting. Hell. Florida has gone from a good "leans Obama" to "Obama abandoning the state" in just a couple weeks. There's no way to know if what we're seeing is the Obama campaign just disintegrating entirely, or if it's just low hanging fruit that they shouldn't have counted on in the first place and we'll hit a firm wall at some point. In either case though, it looks like a strong wave of Romney support flowing across the country.


The question is whether it'll be enough to tip the balance by election day.

Read the trend lines:
Ohio hasn't moved since after the first debate. Romney narrowed the gap then but it hasn't moved since.
Iowa hasn't moved for Romney in over a month.
Nevada hasn't moved for Romney since after the first debate.
Wisconsin hasn't narrowed since after the first debate.

OH+WI+(NV-or-IA) = Obama win. FL/NC/VA/NH/CO be damned. And that's not to write off all those states but Romney showed some initial momentum after Debate #1 which has stalled out in the trifecta of states that matters.

Really? Because he was on Leno two nights ago. Doesn't really seem like "hiding" to me. It seemed like being affable and endearing.

Romney has spent every moment of the past month looking stressed out and terrified. One of Obama's best skills is maintain a calm, collected exterior. Sure, he could be a sniveling mass of fear underneath. But that's definitely not what we see.

It was not "optimal"!

It'll be close, but Romney has the momentum

Nope. There's no possible reading of polling data that indicates this. Romney may win, but any "momentum" he had was stalled around the time of the final debate. Likely not because of it, but that was pretty much the end of his gains.

The GOP should be very concerned about Virginia. Obama winning Florida is a stretch at the moment, but Virginia is shaping up to be pretty interesting. Should be a fun night, generally. Politics aside, from a pure analytical standpoint, with polling this close the GOTV operations are likely what wins or loses. The Obama team was good at it in '08, but how hard is it really to get very motivated voters to the polls? It's difficult to plausibly argue that Romney, via the RNC, has a more effective operation, but I guess it's possible Evangelicals will turn out like they did for Bush and the church based networks drooling simpleton racists will go vote.

We wont know that for certain for a few days in the major polls, but my understanding is that the polling has continued to shift Romney's direction through this week. It's slowed a bit, but slowing from eating 4-6 points of Obama lead a week to 1-2 points a week is still momentum. IMO, the question at this point is whether that shift goes far enough by election day. Firming up always happens in the last month of an election, but Romney's gains have been more than just firming.



The GOP has a pretty significant enthusiasm advantage this time around. It's just hard to get really motivated about a candidate whose record really is just as stunningly bad as Obama's.

The photoshop looks to obvious to be true. Then again the general body of the GOP likely wouldn't be able to notice id imagine.

As far as the election is concerned. Obama will win Ohio, its almost a certainty, the auto industry is adding jobs a plenty, and is the healthiest its been in a long time. It repaid its debt and is still growing. Heck my plant is adding 230 people over the next month to produce frames for GM. Which means they will be adding jobs, and the dealerships will be adding product, and likely jobs.

Not bad for government investment.

And as they saying goes, As Ohio goes, so goes the nation.

Michigan's been locked up for Obama for a while.

Obama's been playing the Romney "let it go bankrupt" card in Ohio, which has lots of auto workers as well.