Parsing the 2012 Presidential Election

As I said in a previous blog post, the polls leading up to the 2012 election were so pointedly partisan that it’s a wonder the Federal Elections Commission didn’t consider them in-kind political contributions to the Obama campaign. Their pollsters chose such ludicrous turnout models that they must have been living in a parallel universe. As we now know, the real turnout model was D+2.2 – not D+7 or more that the polling propagandists were promoting.

It became apparent to me in October that the polls – including the RealClearPolitics average of polls – had become so contaminated by politics you would have thought that a Republican could never again be elected President. Paul Krugman even went so far as to say that anyone who thought the 2012 election was close was stupid. Well, it was close, notwithstanding Krugman’s stupid remark. Obama won the popular vote nationally by a tad over 2% and nine million less votes (5%) less than 2008. The Florida vote was so close that it was Thursday afternoon before we knew Obama had won it by 61,000 – just seven-tenths of one percent. Of the seven red states that gave Obama the 2008 election, he lost two of them in 2012, and his winning margin for the combined seven states that swung the election to him on Tuesday was two-tenths of one percent – hardly a landslide. Still, in the Electoral College a win is a win and Obama got 332 votes to Romney’s 206.

Prior to the election I decided to ignore the polls and instead consulted the US Census Department data for the historic electoral vote by state (see spreadsheet 405 there), which goes back to the 1964 election of Lyndon Johnson. From this data I created my own spreadsheet so I could manipulate it in search of historic voting trends. Highlighting cells red for the states and years whose electoral votes were Republican and blue in the years for which the state’s electoral votes went to the Democrat candidate, I was able to construct a poll-agnostic view of each state’s political tilt by year.

A good deal of political shifting has occurred since Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Jimmy Carter were president. As hard as it may be to believe today, California, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Illinois, and Vermont were solidly red states for the six elections following Lyndon Johnson – from Nixon through Bush 41 – before turning blue and remaining so.

There are two reasons I decided to ignore the elections of Johnson, Nixon, and Carter in deciding which states are truly red and which are truly blue regardless of what the polls say. First, in the 1968 election George Wallace was a serious contender and won the electoral votes of five Deep South states. Second, it’s hard to know how much the Nixon second term scandals helped elect Jimmy Carter, whose hapless opponent, Gerald Ford, inherited the White House after Nixon resigned. Ford was suspected of being a carryover of the hated Nixon in the 1976 election.

For these reasons, I narrowed my attention to the states and their colors since 1980 – the first Reagan election. That focused in on the last eight elections – enough elections to see if a state is a long-term red or blue state or changed colors during the more than three decades covered by those elections.

Once I had highlighted each state red or blue based on the electoral vote winner in each year, I rearranged the states by their “redness” and “blueness” so that I (and you) could see trends over the eight elections. The states that had been red for each of the eight elections – 13 of them – became the top rows of the spreadsheet and those that had been blue for every election – only Minnesota and the District of Columbia – were the bottom rows.

Logically, states that voted red or blue in each of the last eight elections are “hard core” states that should continue voting the same way in the 2012 election. The 13 states that have voted red for the past eight elections including 2008 should therefore vote red in 2012, giving Romney 102 electoral votes.

The middle rows of my spreadsheet are occupied by states that have changed colors during the last eight elections. This was the tricky part because most states have changed colors in various ways. To decide if a state would likely vote red or blue in the 2012 election probably depends on how long it has been its latest color. States that have been red for several previous elections and remained red in the 2008 Obama election should vote red in 2012. Georgia, Montana, and Arizona have been red states for all of the last eight elections except one of the two Clinton elections. They remained red in the 2008 election and should vote red in 2012, giving Romney an additional 30 electoral votes for a total of 132.

Six states voted red in all eight elections except both of Clinton’s elections. The fact that they remained red votes in 2008 while all of the remaining states were going gah-gah over Obama makes them safe red votes in 2012, in my opinion, adding 48 electoral votes to the Romney tally and bringing his total to 180.

There can be little doubt that some red states fell under the sway of Obamamania following the two Bush 43 terms, two wars, and a choice between a hip black dude and an old guy with the personality of Bob Dole. Indiana, North Carolina, and Virginia had been red since Reagan but in 2008 they went over to the dark side and voted blue. Colorado and Florida had also been red since Reagan, except for one of the two Clinton elections. After voting for Bush 43 twice, they went over to the dark side and voted blue in 2008. Finally, Ohio and Nevada have been red since Reagan. They voted red in both Reagan elections, red for Bush 41 but then dumped him for Clinton, voted again for Clinton, whose challenger was Bob Dole, and then voted for Bush 43 twice. Based on their past voting, I believe that Nevada and Ohio are red states that fell for the Hope and Change spin in 2008.

In my opinion, these seven states, which had voted for Obama in 2008, will repent of their folly and vote red in 2012. That will give Romney 101 additional electoral votes, giving him a total of 281 votes and the presidency.

Two states – Iowa and New Mexico – voted for Obama in 2008 but have had curious prior election voting histories. New Mexico voted for Reagan twice, Bush 41, and then voted for Bush 43 in his second term election. Iowa voted similarly but did not go for Bush 41. These don’t look like red states. But then they don’t look like blue states either. I think they are the only true toss-up states in the 2012 election. Romney doesn’t need them to win if I’m right on the other states. Iowa has six electoral votes and New Mexico has five, for a total of 11 votes – nice to have but not essential.

I contend that there are 29 red states – some of them hard core red – that will reliably vote red when given a viable candidate for the presidency. This has nothing to do with polls, which are flawed by turnout models and the fact that only 9% of the adult population will talk to a pollster. Their redness has more to do with the political composition of the state as revealed in historic election voting.

The remaining 19 states and the District of Columbia are truly blue states. They have voted blue in the last five elections, with the exception of New Hampshire, which went for Bush 43 in 2000 and returned to the blue fold after voting for him. 

The bad news for the Democrats is that they can’t win with these 19 states and DC because they represent 246 electoral votes. Even with both of the toss-up states, Democrats can’t get to 270 votes, the number needed to win the presidency. The only way to win is to take red state votes as Obama did in 2008 – 101 of them.

Moreover, changes have been occurring between the states that I believe are true red and true blue which will make winning with these 19 states even harder in the future. Why? Because blue states are losing population and therefore losing electors – 24 of them since Reagan’s first term. They’re going over to the red states, which have gained 25 electors since Reagan’s first term including one from the toss-up states.

So, that’s what I thought would happen when I wrote the preceding paragraphs of this blog and created the red/blue table of states on Monday evening before Tuesday's election. Now that the election is over, I can see that both I and the polls were wrong about the outcome.

If my model was correct, Florida, North Carolina, and Virginia should have been called within an hour or two of poll closing. When they weren’t, I knew Romney was in trouble.

Here’s where my model was right.

The hard core red states and the “almost hard core” reds that didn’t swoon in Obama’s 2008 election voted red in the 2012 balloting as I predicted. Those states gave Romney 180 electoral votes. Two additional states – Indiana and North Carolina – recovered from their blue state swoon in their 2012 votes, adding another 26 electors for a total of 206 for Romney.

I didn’t think Romney needed the two states that appeared to be toss-ups based on past voting – Iowa and New Mexico – which represented 11 votes combined. Tuesday night they went to Obama.

Here’s where I was wrong.

I expected the other blue swoon states to recover their senses in the 2012 balloting. They didn’t. The states of Virginia, Colorado, Florida, Nevada, and Ohio remained with Obama along with their 75 electoral votes which Romney needed to put him in the White House. The loss of either Colorado or Nevada, but not both, would have still put him over the top. Romney lost both.

Florida was close. Obama won it by only seven-tenths of one percent, but an inch is as good as a mile in politics. He had won it by almost 3% in 2008. Florida is politically three blocs – the north and panhandle is heavily Republican, the south is Democrat, so elections are usually decided by the turnout in central Florida. Romney lost three critical counties in central Florida. While I expect Florida will be red more often than blue in future elections, downsizing the military, especially the Navy, will make the north Florida vote weaker in the state's balloting. Don’t think Obama doesn’t know this.

Obama won Ohio by 1.9% – close but good enough in elections. He had spent $100 million in the state pulverizing Romney for wanting the auto industry to go through bankruptcy proceedings instead of the government bailout that preserved the oppressive weight of the union contracts. Obama, on the other hand, was determined to protect the auto workers’ union. All of Ohio’s unions showed their gratitude in contributions of millions of dollars and free labor to get out the vote. Ohio is mostly a red state except around its major cities. It may remain red in the future unless the Democrats field another candidate glib of tongue who can play the unions like a fiddle.

Virginia has historically been red. Other than its 2008 soirée to the dark side, it had been red since Reagan. I lived in the Arlington area of northern Virginia across the Potomac from Washington while I was in college. It was conservative due to the large number of military living in the area and it was part of a southern state. But during the Obama regime government greatly expanded its workforce even as the rest of the country wallowed in recession. Arlington, Alexandria, and McLean homes now combine to form one long enclave for those who slop in the government trough. If a person doesn’t work for the government, he works for a company living off of the government. All of these trough-feeders know which side of the bacon slab the fat is found and voted heavily for Obama in 2008. In the 2012 election their vote overcame the downstate red votes and once again gave Virginia to Obama. Since the number of government workers and contractors is growing, Virginia may be turning blue. The 2016 election should tell. An incumbent president will not be running then, so if Virginia votes blue again, it’s a blue state.

Colorado has historically been red. In 40 years it had turned blue in one election – Clinton’s first – before going for Obama big in 2008 when he beat McCain by nine points. While he won by 99,000 votes in 2012, that margin was 4.3% more votes than Romney – a country mile in politics. Colorado’s Hispanic population is the 7^th largest in the nation, and they pushed Obama to victory. Even though Obama won in 2012 by half the vote margin of 2008, Colorado voted in a ballot initiative to allow recreational use of marijuana. This could be a blue state in the making.

After winning Nevada by 55.1% in 2008, Obama won in 2012 by the smaller margin of 52.3% -- helped by the casino union workers. Despite its historic redness and unemployment above the national average, Nevada reelected Harry Reid in 2008. But in this election Nevada elected a Republican as the state’s second Senator, and elected a Republican for Governor. We’ll have to wait until 2016 to see if Nevada is blue or red.

Of the lessons learned from the 2012 election one of them is how divided – in fact, polarized – the country has become. Romney’s comment that he didn’t expect to get votes from the 47% of the country that pay no taxes may have been politically inept, but it was an accurate observation that an increasing number of the country’s citizens depends on government entitlements that they don’t pay for. As I’ve said in previous blogs, we are becoming a nation of makers and takers. Many of the takers are like hogs under an oak tree that never look up to see where the acorns are coming from. Someone has to pay for their entitlements because the government has no money except what it seizes from citizens. We are approaching a tipping point that could turn America into a European social democracy because looking at the swing state votes that made it possible for Obama to hold on to office, dependency on government was certainly a factor in how they voted. Furthermore, identity politics – race, ethnic origin, sexual preference, and reproductive rights – are more determinative than candidate quality in how a growing percentage of the country votes. Black unemployment is 14% and among black teens it's 50%. Yet, Obama got over 90% of the black vote. America is becoming two countries. The last time that happened on the scale we are approaching was in the 1850s, which was the prelude to the American Civil War.

Another lesson learned is how smash-mouth presidential politics has become. Instead of presenting and arguing for their respective visions for the country, the candidates try to destroy each other in their campaigning. Hundreds of millions of dollars are spent spinning lies, half-truths, and gotchas from which voters learn little. So their votes couldn’t be informed choices of one candidate's position over the other’s. State and national elections are becoming more like gladiatorial spectacles than the process by which we select the best qualified person to take care of the people’s business at the least cost. What kind of future candidates will we attract to elective office if they and their families must be subjected to a brutalizing primary election and then run the gauntlet in the national election? Voters say smash-mouth is a turnoff, but I don’t believe them. I believe Romney didn’t run a personal attack campaign, and I believe it contributed to his loss.

A third lesson learned from the 2012 election is the enormous power the media has gained in political influence. It is the Fourth Estate in politics whose left-leaning bias is patently undisguised. Media-sponsored polling in this election was disgracefully unscientific and unabashedly intended to mislead and demoralize Romney supporters and get them to stay home. When Hurricane Sandy hit the east coast, the media gave Obama millions of dollars in free advertising. And yet it gave Obama cover in the election day run-up by keeping the Benghazi scandal under wraps. The media has become a force multiplier for the Democrat party.

Once again, voters chose gridlock by putting the Democrat party in charge of the White House and one chamber of Congress. Insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result. As the darkness of ObamaCare descends on the country in two years, its back-loaded political chicanery will cause Americans to groan like the Jews under Pharaoh. To avert a fiscal crisis, more money will have to be diverted out of the productive private sector and into the black hole of the public sector. Job creation will suffer. Money will become less valuable. We can moderate our government bondage by putting both houses of Congress under the Republican party at the mid-term elections in 2014, after which time Obama’s presidency will slip into its lame duck years. New Democrat contenders for his throne enter the 2016 fray, telling Americans how different they are from Obama and his disastrous legacy.

Expect to read in the aftermath of 2012 a hue and cry that the Republican party must retool to look more like the Democrat party. Don’t believe it. This was a close election. Republicans had the better vision for the country but communicated it with restrained passion. But for three million Republican voters who cast ballots in 2008 and stayed at home in 2012, we would be looking at a different resident in the White House.