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Vanity: In polls, what about electoral college?
Drudge ^ | 2/3/12 | raccoonradio

Posted on 02/03/2012 6:35:28 AM PST by raccoonradio

The headline news item on Drudge report says "RASMUSSEN: Obama 45% Romney 45%... Developing... "

What I'm wondering is why is this significant overall, because...what about the electoral college? Obama could just barely beat Romney or Gingrich in the popular vote, yet lose the election. Just ask "President Gore".

"Gore Got More" was one of the sayings, and he did.

According to Wikipedia, Al Gore got 50,999,897 votes. 48.4 per cent. Bush got 50,546,002 votes or 47.9 per cent.

If this country elected a President on popular votes, Gore would have been sworn in on 1/20/01. But we use electoral votes. Wiki. said Bush won 30 states. Gore won 20 states plus D.C. (Obama is probably wondering how the other 7 states voted.)

No wonder they argue for a "National Popular Vote" on the Left.

Anyway, you see polls like this but isn't what matters the state-by-state vote?

"The election was noteworthy for a controversy over the awarding of Florida's 25 electoral votes, the subsequent recount process in that state, and the unusual event of the winning candidate having received fewer popular votes than the runner-up," says Wikipedia.

And as I like to point out, Gore COULD have won by electoral vote if he had ONE more state, one won by Bush.

His home state of Tennessee. Bush won 271 EV, Gore 266. If Tenn. went for Gore it would have been Gore 277, Bush 260.

Electoral college...what really should matter in these polls. Yes, popular vote is a good indication of how the race is going, but not the only one.


TOPICS: Chit/Chat
KEYWORDS: electoralcollege; popularvote
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To: evad

It is, in so much as that Zero won Virginia in ‘08.


21 posted on 02/03/2012 7:07:52 AM PST by fieldmarshaldj
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To: treetopsandroofs

Oh yes; Boston’s Howie Carr had a column recently about that.
Dem in office, we don’t hear about the homeless...the war
deaths...

>>Did you know that our elite military units like the Navy SEALs are now examples of America at its absolute finest? Why, wasn’t it just a few years ago that Sen. Dick Durbin was comparing these very same troops to the Khmer Rouge and Joe Stalin’s Red Army?...Since January 2009, natural disasters are no longer the personal fault of the president...On Jan. 20, 2009, all the homeless people went home. Inflation ended that same day. No longer do dying Americans have to travel to Canada to buy affordable prescription drugs. Unemployment rate of 4.5 percent under Bush — “jobless recovery.” Unemployment rate of 8.5 percent under Obama — the new normal.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2838638/posts


22 posted on 02/03/2012 7:08:15 AM PST by raccoonradio
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To: fieldmarshaldj

And of course a reminder to others who didn’t see your post earlier that you use the “real” colors here—thus MA is
red, Florida and Texas blue


23 posted on 02/03/2012 7:10:04 AM PST by raccoonradio
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To: raccoonradio

The media can and will do whatever they please, but it is up to us to not swallow whatever they throw at us. We can take it back, if we have the guts.


24 posted on 02/03/2012 7:10:36 AM PST by fieldmarshaldj
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To: raccoonradio

That graphic is from Dave Leip’s site, where you can program the states this way or that. There is also the added feature of choosing what % a GOP/Dem candidate will take, which can lighten or darken the shade of red or blue (I don’t much mess with that, though).


25 posted on 02/03/2012 7:14:35 AM PST by fieldmarshaldj
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To: fieldmarshaldj

Oh OK...
btw I mentioned the 2000 election. I think W did win Tenn. but it wasn’t by a huge margin as he did the other Southern
states. However it came down to Fla. which I believe was orig. called for Gore, then called back. Its 25 EVs decided the election and ultimately it was called for W.

What I mean of course if even if Gore lost Florida, which he did, a win in his home state of Tenn. WOULD have put him
over the top.


26 posted on 02/03/2012 7:21:15 AM PST by raccoonradio
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To: fieldmarshaldj

That’s pretty close to what I would expect Romney to carry if (God forbid) he were the GOP nominee. But I think that Romney would carry OH and Obama would carry NV, which would give Romney a razor-thin 270-268 victory; Romney would cost us PA and WI, where Santorum would likely win.

As for your shading, I wouldn’t have IN, MT, MO and NC in light blue; Romney would get over 50% in those states (easily exceeding it in the first three).

I think we can win whether Romney, Santorum or Newt is our nominee, so I don’t give any thought to the Romneyite argument that he’s “more electable” and “the only one who can win.” But neither do I believe that Romney can’t win, since Obama has a very tough road to 270.


27 posted on 02/03/2012 7:22:11 AM PST by AuH2ORepublican (If a politician won't protect innocent babies, what makes you think that he'll protect your rights?)
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To: fieldmarshaldj

“There is also the added feature of choosing what % a GOP/Dem candidate will take, which can lighten or darken the shade of red or blue (I don’t much mess with that, though).”


DJ, I see that I was mistaken to assume that you had given Romney below 50% in MO, MT, IN and NC, when you merely picked him as the winner there and left the 2008 victor’s vote percentage intact (McCain won MO with below 50%, and Obama won the other three with below 50%).


28 posted on 02/03/2012 7:25:37 AM PST by AuH2ORepublican (If a politician won't protect innocent babies, what makes you think that he'll protect your rights?)
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To: raccoonradio
We are a federal union of 50 states. The president holds the only nationally elected office (okay, the Veep too) and he must be the president of the Union, not just a majority of Americans.

Libs in gereral have a problem with federalism. The would prefer a unified state with States surviving as quaint legacies of our ever receding past . . . like provinces in France. Every Frenchmen refers to his province (Normandy, Provence, etc.) though they haven't existed for 200 years.

29 posted on 02/03/2012 7:39:56 AM PST by Oratam
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To: raccoonradio
Yes, I'm a Tennessean and quite proud we stopped that monster from DC (Gore was never from here, he was born and raised in DC and occasionally would spend a summer here when his daddy wasn't taking marching orders from Stalin's personal capitalist, Armand Hammer). I predicted after the 1996 elections that Gore would not be able to carry Tennessee. As it was, he only barely helped Clinton to carry it in 1992 and '96 (but both times, it was only by a plurality, it was Perot who took the rest). For a lot of years, Tennesseans bought that Gore was a "centrist", even a "Conservative", and once he was unleashed as VP, folks here could finally see this guy was an ultraliberal. By 2000, he had clearly alienated more than half the population of the state. It was more than poetic justice that when he held his "victory party" outside here in Nashville's downtown, we had a rare November thunderstorm that evening. So, yup, Tennessee saved the country. ;-D
30 posted on 02/03/2012 7:41:27 AM PST by fieldmarshaldj
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To: raccoonradio
this gets further complicated by the various states who have entered into a “compact”, where the candidate with the greatest national popular vote gets all the electors, regardless of the actual outcome in the state.

Fortunately, the “compact” is among ‘blue” states, so far.but they do have a cumulative 132 electoral votes.

seems to me, it would be in the RATS best interest to always have a "Ross Perot" type run as a 3rd party candidate.

31 posted on 02/03/2012 7:44:40 AM PST by stylin19a (time to Obamanos)
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To: fieldmarshaldj

Sorry, I don’t see any way Obama carries OH this cycle. Nor do I think he can win CO this time around. That’s your victory right there, I think.


32 posted on 02/03/2012 7:46:51 AM PST by LS
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To: AuH2ORepublican

Sorry, I didn’t adjust the % shadings, I was just going for a rough estimate of the states he’d carry under the best of circumstances. I don’t think Willard will carry Ohio, because he is just the sort of ultrarich elitist that will viscerally turn off the working class, ones whom would ordinarily support us. He’s a walking media stereotype of an out-of-touch “Republican.” If McCain couldn’t pull it off in 2008, there’s no way someone to his left will this time, and why would we want to ? If we have a Conservative run third party (if and only if he is coronated), the whole map will take on a very different shade.


33 posted on 02/03/2012 7:47:01 AM PST by fieldmarshaldj
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To: raccoonradio

I hate looking at that county map because of my state, CA. All those conservative counties, but winner take all and we lose. :(


34 posted on 02/03/2012 7:47:37 AM PST by Yaelle
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To: fieldmarshaldj

BTW, latest polls here in OH showed Romney with a lead over Zero.


35 posted on 02/03/2012 7:54:48 AM PST by LS
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To: raccoonradio

These polls matter because the popular vote winner will likely win the electoral college. Yes in 2000, Gore did win the popular vote - but that election was razor close at 48.4 Gore to 47.9 Bush.

If Obama wins by a percentage point or more he would almost certainly win the electoral college tally, and the same goes for the GOP nominee. So yeah, these polls matter - particularly when you use something like the RCP average.


36 posted on 02/03/2012 7:55:10 AM PST by Longbow1969
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To: AuH2ORepublican

Oops, meant to say that McCain carried MO and MT with under 50% and Obama carried the other two with under 50%.


37 posted on 02/03/2012 8:09:31 AM PST by AuH2ORepublican (If a politician won't protect innocent babies, what makes you think that he'll protect your rights?)
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To: LS

It’s February. Anyway, hopefully this abomination will be stopped soon, or at the floor of the convention at the latest.


38 posted on 02/03/2012 8:17:20 AM PST by fieldmarshaldj
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To: raccoonradio

The Bee Gees spelled that M-a-a-a-a-s-achusetts.


39 posted on 02/03/2012 8:31:22 AM PST by csmusaret (I have kleptomania, but when it gets too bad I take something.)
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To: LS
"Sorry, I don’t see any way Obama carries OH this cycle. Nor do I think he can win CO this time around. That’s your victory right there, I think."

Nor will he carry Virginia.

40 posted on 02/03/2012 9:24:11 AM PST by evad (STOP SPENDING, STOP SPENDING, STOP SPENDING. It's the SPENDING Stupid)
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