John Cassidy's Blog, page 85

Cassidy’s Count: A Victory for the Pollsters and the Forecasters

Now that the Florida authorities have finally confirmed that President Obama defeated Mitt Romney in the Sunshine State by a margin of 50.0 per cent to 49.1 per cent, we have all the results and data we need to talk about what happened in the 2012 election, and who got it right. Obviously, Nate Silver did—more about that below. But so did most of the other forecasters, and, more importantly, many of the pollsters on whose work all the prognosticators, Silver and myself included, relied. To remind you, here are the results: President Obama won the popular vote by 50.5 per cent to 47.9 per cent, a margin of 2.6 per cent. In the Electoral College, he got 332 votes and Mitt Romney got 206 votes. Obama carried almost all the battlegrounds, which, for these purposes, I will consider as eleven states: Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin.

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What’s Up with White Women? They Voted for Romney, Too

In the last couple of days, there has been a lot of talk about how the gender gap cost Mitt Romney the election, and also about how Caucasian males, in deserting Obama en masse, are swimming against history. In certain circles, a commonly asked question is: “What’s up with white men?” Writing in Thursday’s Times, Gail Collins called older white guys “the biggest loser demographic of the election.” Yesterday, one female friend confided to me: “They are strange, white men.”

That may well be true. I, for one, know a lot of weird white dudes, and the fact that Romney led Obama in their demographic by twenty-seven points—sixty-two per cent to thirty-five per cent—amply justifies all the attention it is receiving. But it turns out that, purely on the basis of their voting patterns, a similar question could also be asked about white women, or most of them. One of the least commented-upon aspects of the election returns is that well over fifty per cent of Caucasian females voted for Romney, too. Not as many of them as white men, of course, but a solid majority. Indeed, as a proportion of the total, more white women voted for Romney on Tuesday than voted for George W. Bush, in 2004, or for John McCain, in 2008.

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A Victory for Obama and for Obama’s America

Even Karl Rove could only delay the inevitable for so long. At about 11:30 P.M., shortly after all the networks had called Ohio and, with it, the entire election for President Obama, the man George W. Bush used to call Turd Blossom objected, live on the air, to the Fox News decision to go along with the crowd. It was a rare public spat in the Fox/G.O.P. alliance, and, evidently, somebody in Boston was listening. Citing the possibility of a last-minute turnaround in Ohio, the Romney campaign refused for another hour or so to concede it was all over.

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“Obama Coalition” Carries Him to Big Victory

In the end, it wasn’t even very close. From the moment the exit polls came in, it looked like President Obama was heading for a big victory, and, according to the major networks, that proved to be the case. All evening, Democratic wins in the battleground states steadily stacked up: Pennsylvania, Michigan, New Hampshire, Wisconsin, Nevada, Iowa, Colorado. At 11:15, NBC called Ohio for the President.

As I’m writing this, Florida and Virginia remain too close to call, but it looks like Obama will win them both. That would give him three hundred and thirty two votes in the electoral college, and leave Mitt Romney with two hundred and six. That’s a bit bigger margin than I and most of the pundits and forecasters predicted. Once the votes in California and the rest of the West are counted, Obama will most likely win the popular vote, too.

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Could Romney Still Win?

On Sunday, as a blizzard of new polls confirmed the lack of a last-minute bounce for the Mittster, I tweeted out: “Apart from George Will, does anyone still think Romney will win the electoral college?” Apparently, they do. Here are the names of the Romney optimists: Karl Rove and Dick Morris, who need no introduction; Michael Barone, the veteran political analyst; John Ellis, a media pundit who used to be a senior executive at Fox News; Jennifer Rubin, neoconservative columnist at the Washington Post; and Donald Trump.

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Cassidy’s Count: Obama to Win Electoral College, 303 to 235

With about twelve hours to go until the polling places open, it’s time to get off the fence and make some firm predictions. I’ve been saying for months that I think Obama is likely to win, and, as you might expect, I’m not changing my opinion now. Indeed, I’m more confident than I was a week or two ago. Over the past few days, the national polls have shown a slight but notable swing in the President’s favor, probably due to his handling of Hurricane Sandy. At the local level, virtually nothing has changed since my previous update before the weekend: voter surveys show him leading in seven of the eight battleground states—Florida is the exception. I’d left a few toss-ups on that map, but we’re done with that now.

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How Much Did Hurricane Sandy Help Obama?

Amidst a blizzard of last-minute polls, I’m still working on my final calls for the electoral map, which I’ll post later today. But first a quick heads-up about Hurricane Sandy and its aftermath. I know that some readers find it distasteful to cast such a human tragedy in terms of electoral politics, but there’s no getting away from the fact that President’s adroit response to the storm has had a significant effect on public opinion. After being behind in the national polls for most of October, he has now reëstablished a narrow lead. While there are a number of possible explanations for this turnaround, the most convincing is the simplest: his handling of Sandy has raised his standing, and his poll ratings.

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Strong Job Figures Belie Romney’s Attacks

By historic standards, they weren’t blow-out numbers. When the American economy is going at full throttle, it can generate 250,000 or 300,000 jobs a month. But for a President in a tight reëlection race, four days before the polls open, the October employment report must have come as a mighty relief. According to the Labor Department’s survey of businesses, 171,000 new jobs were added last month—the highest figure since February. The new positions were spread throughout the economy, with retailing (plus 36,000), health care (plus 31,000), and business services (plus 51,000) showing particular strength. The only big group of employers that shed workers were state and local governments (minus 13,000) which are still being hit by budget cuts. And revisions to the previous two months’ payroll reports added another 84,000 jobs to the economy’s over-all total.

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Cassidy’s Count: Obama Looks Good Going Into Final Weekend

After all the drama of the past few days, it may seem anticlimactic to suggest that not much has changed in the election. That’s what the latest polls are telling us, though. Going into the final weekend of the campaign, it’s still a tight race, but President Obama retains a distinct advantage in the electoral college. Unless the pollsters are wrong, or there is a last-minute swing to Mitt Romney, the Democratic incumbent looks set to scrape out a victory.

Obviously, there is a lot of interest in how Obama’s adroit response to Hurricane Sandy, and the problems it has posed for his opponent, are affecting the race. With much of the polling, especially in the state surveys, still reflecting questioning that was done before the storm hit, it is hard to say. At the national level, the tracking polls that are still operating—Gallup suspended its survey on Monday and hasn’t restarted it yet—suggest that remarkably little has changed. In today’s update from Rasmussen, Romney is leading by two points: 49 to 47. That’s the same lead he had on Monday, before the storm came ashore. The Reuters/Ipsos tracking poll also shows no change. In its poll completed on Monday, Obama was leading by one point. Ditto in today’s update, which was based on questioning completed on Wednesday. Meanwhile, the latest Washington Post/ABC News tracker has the race tied, just as it did before the storm hit.

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Love at the Shore: The Governor and the President

On the fourth day of their taboo-defying relationship, President Obama and Governor Christie made a trip to the Jersey Shore, home to Bruce Springsteen, Snooki, and numerous other Garden State legends. With the roads to the ocean blocked and most of the water routes destroyed, the unlikely duo had to rely on public transport. After flying up to Atlantic City on Air Force One, the President greeted the Governor on the tarmac. Then they both climbed aboard Marine One for an hour-long aerial tour of the damage that Sandy had wrought.

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