Sunday, November 4, 2012

The State of the Race: Final Predictions

And on the Sunday before the election, here I am at a warming and recharging station in the courthouse of my town, working among the first responders and FEMA agents, and wondering when I'm going to get my power, and more important, my heat, back.

Some people have it much worse, so I'll shut my yap and stick to what I know 100%: My opinion.

The national media has been making a great deal of noise about how close this election is and how anything can happen on Tuesday. They've also been talking up the Ohio ballots that won't be counted until after Tuesday, which could mean that we won't know who will be our next president until the turkey hits the table.

Hogwash. Balderdash. Bunk. Hokum. And other bygone phrases implying that someone doesn't know what they're talking about. We'll know early Wednesday morning and unless there is massive voter fraud or the polls have been completely wrong since, say, June, then President Obama will be reelected.

You can look at any reputable site from pollster to RealClearPolitics to fivethirtyeight to Princeton Election Consortium to Votamatic and anybody to the left of unskewedpolls.com (which is really everybody) and see that the overwhelming majority of polls have the president ahead. I know that Republicans are holding out for an opposite result based on voter turnout and a not-so-subtle liberal bias in the media. Democrats being Democrats, they are expecting something terrible to happen just so they can worry for one more day, such as fraud, voting machine plots from that Romney boy, the power of the right-wing media to convince people who will not benefit from a GOP win to vote against their interests, or the latest news from Uzbekistan or Mongolia to convince voters that Mitt Romney will solve all of our problems.

I just don't see it happening.

This campaign has had its share of twists and turns from the GOP primaries to the conventions, debates and billions spent on ads and attacks, but it has had a consistent narrative: President Obama has been ahead in the polls since July. Romney made a great run after the Denver debate in October and got very close, but never undid Obama's electoral majority. In fact, Romney's polling rose around October 5 and stayed elevated for a week before it began to recede. All of the talk about Mitt-mentum and the Romney surge were just words from the 24-hour commentariat. Statistically, it didn't materialize.

What did materialize was a right wing assault on science and math that questioned polls, methodology and, true to form, scathing attacks on pollsters themselves (the left was also guilty of this, with Scott Rasmussen their target). It was ugly and wrong, but I'm sure it will continue as long as there are elections. Remember reading about how low the US ranks in science and math scores? This was the result.

Obama will win this election with over 300 electoral votes and the Democrats will hold the Senate. Republicans will hold the House and will probably add two Governors to their ranks. If I have power on Tuesday, I will update. Otherwise, please remember to vote.

For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives and on Twitter @rigrundfest




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