In the meantime, I do plan on posting a fresh projection update tonight, so be sure to check back to see if there has been any movement in the numbers.



Filed under:  2012 Elections  Website administration 

On the Senate front, Election Projection now projects an effective 50-50 tie with the two projected Independents caucusing with the Democrats.  The shift in the numbers comes courtesy of the Massachusetts race.  A poll from Rasmussen this week gives Democratic challenger Elizabeth Warren a one-point lead over incumbent Republican Scott Brown in the Bay State senate race.  That's not much of a lead, but it is enough to tip the projection to the blue team for now.

I know the House and Governor's summaries have seen little in the way of updates up until now.  That is about to change - especially for the House races - as I'm working behind the scenes to bring current as many races as feasible at this point in the cycle.  Stay tuned...



Filed under:  2012 Elections  2012 Presidential Election  Senate '12  2012 House  2012 Governors  Massachusetts 2012  MA Senate 2012 

And still, Republicans fight each other, wasting precious time with every passing day and squandering precious resources doing Obama's campaign task for him.  The time has come - no, it has long past - for Santorum and Gingrich to begin helping Mitt Romney defeat Obama.  That, or get out of the way.



Filed under:  2012 Presidential Election  2012 Elections 

For now, however, the president is polling strong in several battleground states, maintaining surprisingly comfortable margins in such Republican must-win states like Virginia and Florida.  On the strength of that polling Obama enjoys a blue Florida with this latest update, and its 29 electoral votes put him even farther ahead of Mitt Romney, 332-206.

Correction: I originally said Obama was talking to Vladimir Putin when the gaffe was aired.  He was in fact speaking to Dmitry Medvedev.  My apologies for the error.



Filed under:  2012 Presidential Election  2012 Elections  Florida 2012  FL President 2012  Virginia 2012  VA President 2012 

Of course, with a name like "Election Projection," you might expect extensive resources by which you can track the upcoming elections in November.  Indeed, that is a large part of EP's content.  Below you'll find links to handy summary pages which include frequently updated at-a-glance projections of different state-by-state races.

• 2012 Presidential Elections:  The current numbers give President Obama a comfortable 303-235 lead in the all important race for the White House.
• 2012 Senate Elections:  For the moment, we have a projected tie in the Senate, with VP Biden casting the deciding vote.
• 2012 Congressional Elections:  Redistricting has shuffled around the make up of our 435 congressional districts, but the current projected tally looks almost unchanged.
• 2012 Governor Elections:  Just eleven gubernatorial races are on tap this year, but the GOP looks well-positioned to expand their statehouse majority.

In addition to the projections, EP also provides easy-to-use pages that cover other aspects of the election season.

• 2012 Republican Presidential Nomination:  Track the GOP primaries with a handy table listing dates, delegates, winners and more.
• 2012 Redistricting:  The census of 2010 changed the congressional landscape across the nation.  This page tracks how those changes are playing out.

Coincidentally - or maybe not - both races flipped on the weight of a series of polls from NBC News/Marist.  I'm not sure what to make them, but they conducted several polls around the country whose results look very much like outliers.  I'm still using them in the calculations, but it'll be something we'll want to keep an eye on going forward.



Filed under:  2012 Elections  2012 Presidential Election  Senate '12  Ohio 2012  OH President 2012  Virginia 2012  VA Senate 2012 

As I promised a week ago, I've launched Election Projection's official tracking of the presidential contest between Romney and President Obama, and the first official projections are posted.  Previously, the President enjoyed a substantial lead after the "Tour of the 50 states" yielded my state-by-state preliminary projections.  But the first look at the race using calculations with actual polling numbers reveals a much closer fight.  Obama retains the lead in my initial projections, but by just 6 electoral votes.

Mitt Romney is projected to carry all the states won by John McCain in 2008 - plus Florida, Indiana, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia - for a total of 266 electoral votes.  That's not quite enough to best President Obama, who is projected to win a total of 272 EVs, but it does set up a race that should be very competitive.  As we watch this competitive race unfold over the next nine months, I hope you'll visit Election Projection often to get an up-to-date outlook from The Blogging Caesar.



Filed under:  2012 Elections  2012 Presidential Election 

When Rick Perry joined the fray, I boldly declared him the next nominee - and the next president. (Ok, how was I to know he'd forget his own policies?).  When Rick Santorum utilized Mike Huckabee's GOP base in Iowa to gain a virtual tie with Romney in the Hawkeye Caucuses, I pegged the nomination contest as a two-man race.  In between, I rode the short-lived waves of Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich.  And most recently, I even floated the possibility of a Perry comeback in the days before New Hampshire.

Now, with South Carolina's primary less than a week away, I've become convinced of a less-than-optimal inevitability.  It is with some regret that I hereby relinquish hope of an "anti-Romney" candidate prevailing to face President Obama in November.  Mitt Romney is dominating the fundraising battle and the endorsement tally.  Beyond that, he also continues to lead the polls both in South Carolina and nationally.

Trying to draw up a scenario that doesn't end with a Romney nomination has become unreasonably improbable.  So sure am I that he will emerge the nominee that I will soon be dispensing with my preliminary presidential projections and initiating actual, formula-driven projections using Obama vs. Romney poll numbers.  Let the games begin - and may Romney win.



Filed under:  2012 GOP Primaries  2012 Elections  2012 Presidential Election  Mitt Romney 

It's the economy- Last cycle, evangelicals were solidly behind Huckabee, and values issues were foremost on their minds.  Last night, entrance polling showed the economy and jobs far outweighed social issues, even in the minds of religious conservatives.  The fact that Santorum still pulled out a tie against Romney - even while staunch conservatives were splitting their vote substantially with Ron Paul - reveals his ability to draw Republicans on economic issues, not just social ones.  That will lend strength to his legitimacy as the anti-Romney candidate as we move into other areas where evangelicals don't play such a major role.

There is no John McCain- As odd as this may sound, Santorum will benefit from the fact that there is no John McCain waiting in the wings.  Four years ago, McCain was polling well in New Hampshire, and his victory there set the stage for his unlikely ride to the nomination.  This year, all legitimate candidates have already had their moments in the spotlight as the anti-Romney candidate and have fallen away.  Last night cleared the field for a Santorum vs. Romney two-man race.  (Jon Huntsman has no chance of gaining momentum or contending for the nomination, even if he maxes out expectations in New Hampshire.)

Mike Huckabee's rise was short-lived as Republicans settled on John McCain as the anti-Romney alternative.  I believe Rick Santorum's rise will persist for much longer, and his flame will not be extinguished by another alternative to Romney.  Indeed, there just aren't any more arrows in that quiver.  I'm not guaranteeing a Santorum nomination, but I am saying that the GOP nominee will inevitably be either him or Romney.



Filed under:  2012 Elections  2012 GOP Primaries  IA Caucus 2012 

Going on to New Hampshire and South Carolina, we now have our anti-Romney candidate.  This race has been reduced to just two real contenders.  Ron Paul's performance illustrated my point that his ceiling is in the low 20s.  The sooner he gets out of the race, the better, in my view.  The Republican nomination will go to either Mitt Romney or Rick Santorum.

And after Iowa's results, it's either man's race.  Santorum's first two words in his speech early this morning were "game on!"  Indeed.



Filed under:  2012 Elections  IA Caucus 2012  Iowa 2012  IA President 2012 

Some time later this evening, the Iowa GOP website will be posting the results.



Filed under:  2012 Elections  Iowa 2012  IA President 2012  IA Caucus 2012 

Coincidentally, this week, I had a conversation with a very intelligent, liberal friend of mine about this very fact.  In our discussion, he asserted that job approval will only be an overriding factor if the GOP can nominate an electable candidate to challenge the President.  He believes even a dismal economy can be overcome if Obama faces a weak enough opponent.  I countered - and rightly so, I believe - that if Obama's job approval is in the low 40's come the weekend before Election Day, it won't matter who is listed below him on the ballot.

I firmly believe this - and the track record backs me up.  Every president with an approval rating of 49% or above since 1940 has won, while the three with approval less than that have lost. Moreover, if a president's approval dipped into the 30's, his defeat was sizeable.

I am very willing to stand on this prediction:  If Obama's approval is under 45% this time next year, he will lose - and lose big - no matter whom he faces.  But here's the caviat (and I didn't mention this in my discussion with my friend).  Obama's job approval will be somewhat tied to the GOP nominee.  If Republicans nominate someone who connects with voters, Obama's shortcomings will be accentuated, and his approval will sustain downward pressure.  On the other hand, a weak candidate will have the opposite effect.  If voters are presented with an unacceptable GOP challenger, they will begin to see such things as a bad economy as more palatable, and Obama's approval will rise as a result.

In the end, the corellation between job approval and re-election will be unbroken after Election 2012.  But where that job approval ends up will be a combination of many factors, not the least of which will be who gets to be the last speaker at the Republican National Convention in Tampa next August.



Filed under:  2012 Elections  2012 Presidential Election  President Obama 

Let's start with the closest of state races from 2008.  President Obama won North Carolina (0.32%), Indiana (1.04%), Nebraska's 2nd congressional district (1.19%) and Florida (2.82%) by less than 3%.  Assuming equal distribution across the nation, a GOP-ward swing of a mere 1.5% in the popular vote would flip these states to red and narrow Obama's EV margin to 305-235.  And if his portion of the popular vote were to decline just 3% more, Ohio (4.59%), Virginia (6.29%) and Colorado (8.95%) would give their 40 electoral votes and an electoral victory to the Republican nominee.  So, in light of the numbers, it is clear that the 2012 election will be won or lost in these three states.

Conspicuously absent from this winning GOP scenario are any of the traditional battleground states of Iowa, Nevada, New Mexico, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Minnesota and New Hampshire.  In 2000, George W. Bush needed all the states mentioned previously as well as Nevada and New Hampshire to get to a scant 271-267 electoral vote majority.  Next year, the GOP candidate can lose both Nevada and New Hampshire (10 EVs total) and still reach a more comfortable majority with 275 electoral votes.  Redistricting over the last two censuses has shifted at least 14 electoral votes to redder states and made electing a Republican president structurally easier.

Compounding Obama's re-election difficulties are his dismal approval numbers.  Realistically, a sitting president with a job approval rating under 45% has very little chance of winning 4 more years in office.  These numbers could improve, but with 13 months until Election Day, the odds are long that they would improve enough to for him to win.  Nate Silver actually posted the following graphic in an article he wrote back in January concerning this very phenomenon.

From Silver's analysis, Obama's current approval of 40% maps to about a 40% chance of re-election.  Considering the structural changes due to redistricting, I'd peg his chances at 35% or so right now.



Filed under:  2012 Elections  2012 Redistricting  President Obama  2012 Presidential Election 

I think this is a good time to get back into the swing of things - that is, after my family and I get back from a long-awaited week at the beach.  Look for the parade of state-by-state evaluations to begin here at Election Projection after we return.  Until then, let me highly recommend a movie we just watched this evening.  "Courageous" is a gripping and poignant picture of what happens when fathers don't own up to their God-given responsibilities to guide our children and lead our families - and what can happen when fathers do.  I was both convicted of ways I need to be a better father and convinced all fathers need to see this movie.

See you in a week.



Filed under:  2012 Elections  The Blogging Caesar 

One more thing:  If Obama's job approval stays where it is now for the next 15 months, Rick Perry is your next POTUS.  Mark my words.



Filed under:  2012 Elections 

(A presentation illustrating just how close this correlation has been used to be posted here.  It served as a cornerstone of my first Election Projection formula back in 2004.  Unfortunately, it has since been removed, so I don't have the specifics readily available.)

At 42% approval, Gallup's survey indicates Obama would almost certainly be defeated if the election were held today - regardless of who his GOP opponent might be.  That's the bad news for Democrats.  The good news, of course, is that the election is not being held today.  In fact, the president still has 456 days to get that approval rating up above 50% and into winning territory.  For us political fans - liberals and conservatives alike - it'll be fun to watch how that quest progresses over the next 15 months.



Filed under:  2012 Elections  President Obama 

While many conservatives will claim Obama's speech was clearly short on substance and long on propaganda, I don't think that will be clear to the 25-30% of America's voters whose choice for president next November has not yet been made.  The "balanced" approach Obama laid out was decried by Speaker Boehner in his 5-minute rebuttal.  But, as I tried to listen with the ears of America's undecideds, Boehner didn't tell me why asking the wealthiest Americans to give up a tax break or two is a bad idea when he is asking Aunt Sandy to pay a higher price for her medicine.

Don't get me wrong; I was impressed with Boehner's delivery.  And I thought what he said was exactly right.  Unfortunately, I don't think he had the same sound-bite-worthy material that would resonate with folks who have voted both ways for president over the last several elections.  Those are the ones whom Republicans desperately need to peel away from Obama's 2008 vote count if he is to be a one-term wonder.  I don't want Republicans to budge from the promises they made on the election campaign - we did elect to rein in spending, not to raise taxes, after all - but if we don't figure out a way to present more compelling arguments that aren't just recycled talking points, Republicans may end up having to battle Obama's teleprompter prowess for another term.



Filed under:  Budget  The Republican Party  President Obama  2012 Elections 

That brings me to a main conclusion I reached from the debate.  It is actually a conclusion voiced at the end by Herman Cain.  While the field of GOP candidates has been maligned as weak and unoriginal - even by me - last night showed those watching that several solid presidential candidates are vying for the opportunity to face Obama next year.  If this country is at all disillusioned with his administration and its policies come next November, the GOP will have a legitimate and very acceptable alternative to steer us in a conservative direction.



Filed under:  2012 Elections  The Republican Party 

I applaud the resurgence of conservative ideals making its way once again across the country.  I'm especially happy to see it rising against Hatch and Lugar since keeping those seats in GOP hands should be only mildly challenging without the incumbent on the ballot.  The prospects of winning in Maine without Snowe on the ballot seem much less likely.  The question raised by these challenges to more moderate Republicans is whether it is better in the long run to have Republicans in blue-tinted states while sacrificing the purity of the ideology or liberal Democrats with our ideology in tact.  I'm still trying to figure out the right answer to that question.  In the meantime, the Tea Party marches on, showing full well that it will be a force to be reckoned with once again in 2012.



Filed under:  2012 Elections  Tea Party  Senate '12  UT Senate 2012  ME Senate 2012  IN Senate 2012 

Second, Virginia's electoral votes, which President Obama captured in 2008, become a bit harder to hold without the incumbent senator on the ballot.  Of course, Obama doesn't necessarily need Virginia to win another term, but I'm sure he'd rather avoid as many negatives as possible between now and November, 2012.



Filed under:  2012 Elections  Virginia 2012  VA Senate 2012 

Since there is very little we can do this far out to foresee the mood of the American electorate a year after this coming November, my first look at the Senate races of 2012 includes different ratings depending on what color wave, if any, is bearing down on us as we move toward Election Day.  To provide good points of reference, I will use the red wave of 2010 as a highwater mark for the GOP, the blue wave of 2006 for the Democrats, and the status-quo election of 2000 as the calm political seas example.

So I say we could see anywhere from a 4 or 5 seat gain for Democrats to an 8 or 9 seat gain for the Republicans - or anything in between.  How's that for laying it on the line!



Filed under:  2012 Elections  Senate '12