So that's it for the election.

[Daldolma]

Originally Posted by Triangle [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Just wanted to bump this post. Call me lucky, but I did guarantee it and risked lots of plat on it for no gain.

Whether or not you were lucky depends on your level of political understanding. By October, it was already extremely clear that Obama was going to win this election, quite likely by a large margin. Assuming you understood the electoral math, no luck (or skill) was required.

The closeness of the race was played up in order to maximize ratings. Romney had no shot in PA, Michigan, New Hampshire, or Minnesota.

Given that fact, he absolutely could not win without Florida -- which was 50/50, at best. To win without Ohio (where he was behind in the polls), he'd absolutely have to carry Florida, Virginia (behind), North Carolina, and Wisconsin (behind), and he'd have to carry all but one of: Iowa (behind), Colorado (behind), and Nevada (behind).

People got caught up in the fact that Romney was fairly close in a lot of the traditional swing states, but he was still behind, and he needed to take almost all of them to win. Look at the map. He could've swept Florida, Ohio, and Virginia and he still would've lost. He would've been the first person to do that and lose since Nixon ran against JFK. And in reality, Romney's going to lose all 3 (Florida isn't done yet, but based on the districts, the likelihood is that Obama took it).

[Splorf22]

Well I think there were some reasonable reasons to suspect the polls (e.g. the Bradley effect) but as it happens they were extremely accurate.

[Daldolma]

Originally Posted by Splorf22 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Well I think there were some reasonable reasons to suspect the polls (e.g. the Bradley effect) but as it happens they were extremely accurate.

Eh, after 2008 I think the Bradley effect was essentially out of play. Republicans had done a good enough job of rebranding racism as Obama demonism, to the point that those unlikely to vote for Obama would have had a comfortable enough excuse to admit selecting Romney. That's not to say voting for Romney was necessarily based on racism -- just that Republicans clearly courted that voter market.

Romney also was polling at a higher share of the white vote than any Republican candidate since 1988, so it's not like there was much room for the Bradley effect to kick in. He was polled at 59-60% of the white vote to Obama's 38%, which is a massive lead. It just seems unlikely that those numbers had room to be significantly fudged based on the Bradley effect.