As the presidential election votes roll in from across the nation on Tuesday evening, it can be hard to detect the really significant data from the blizzard of words being thrown at you by the mass media. This guide will help sort that out by telling you what is expected and allow you to see quickly if things are departing from what is expected. I’ll focus primarily on the close presidential election, but will offer a few comments on U.S. Senate races of note.
Warning, spoiler alert
Want the bottom line? Shortly after 10:00 p.m. Central time, Barack Obama will be re-elected. But it will be close.
The baseline
As you know, there are 538 electoral votes up for grabs, and 270 are needed for a win. And it is possible, if very unlikely, that there would be a 269-269 tie.
Using a consensus of state-level opinion polling, the “poll of polls,” we can establish an estimate of how the electoral vote will turn out. This will be our baseline.
How accurate are the polls? In 2008, if the average of reputable polls in a state gave one candidate a 2 percentage point lead or greater, that candidate did indeed win the state. There wasn’t a single exception to that rule. By contrast, there were four states where the lead in the polls was less than a 2 percent split, and there was no correlation to the poll results. So we’ll use that rule for 2012: A 2 percent or greater lead means we expect that state to go to the candidate. If no candidate has that size of lead, we call it a tossup. Our polling data comes from Pollster which is now a part of the Huffington Post.
First our baseline number. Using the rule we explained above we have the following prediction.
Obama: 23 states 277 electoral votes
Romney: 25 states 210 electoral votes
Tossup: 3 states 51 electoral votes (Virginia, Florida, Colorado)
(There are 51 “states” because the District of Columbia also has 3 electoral votes.)
There is another way to assess the reasonableness of this prediction. In 2008, Obama won 364 electoral votes. Seventy-three were from states he won with a less than 5 percent margin. Of course, 364 less 73 is 291. So even a 5 percent swing away from Obama would result in a victory for the Democrat.
Back to our 2012 baseline. Note that this means that even if all the tossup states break for Romney, it isn’t enough to give him the win. But the media may get excited if tossup states are going that way. On the other hand, Obama’s lead in four states is just 2 or 3 percent and that is 34 electoral votes – more than enough to tip the election to Romney if the challenger were to sweep the tossup states and those four as well.
Nonetheless, the one sentence summary of the election remains: Obama needs to do as well as expected to be re-elected; Romney needs to better expectations to win.
Our next step is to understand how the media “calls” a state for a presidential candidate. The media do not call an individual state until the polls are closed in that state, even if they have ample data from exit polling that one candidate has won. Complicating this is that 12 states are split across time zones. Almost all of these have the polls close asynchronously, that is, if the law says polls close at 8 p.m., then the polls will be closed at two different times, at 8 p.m. in each time zone.
In elections past, on occasion I’ve seen races called in a state when the earlier closing time was the majority of the state. This no longer occurs.
And then, too, voting is sometimes held open after the official closing time due to lines at the official poll closing time. On top of this complication, in 2000, 2004 and 2006 elections the pooled predication operation had some problems. So there could be some surprises on Tuesday.
But, there still is a useful pattern here. If a state is called immediately after its polls close, the race in that state wasn’t close; the closer it is, the longer the media has to wait while they collect more data – and that’s a clue we can use. Based on the 2004 election, if the winning margin in a state is eight points or better, the media declare the winner pretty much right when the polls close – but there are exceptions. In 2008, more states held polls open to accommodate larger than expected turnout than we might expect this time.
But still, this is what we have to go on.
OK, on to the evening. All times in Central Standard Time. All vote totals are electoral votes.
5:00 p.m. Baseline: Obama: 0 Romney: 0 Tossup: 0
Yes, you can start your evening at 5 p.m. Indiana and Kentucky are both split across time zones, and so polls in part of these two states have closed now, the first in the nation. But, as I indicated, it is unlikely that we’ll hear anything, despite both of these states being solidly for Romney.
Remember our baseline prediction. As the evening goes on, you can update that baseline by noting those states that depart from the prediction. That will give you a revised estimate for what the result will be.
6:00 p.m. Baseline: Obama: 3 Romney: 44 Tossup: 13
Six states are closed now, and Romney is well ahead in four (Kentucky, Indiana, Georgia, South Carolina), Obama is well ahead in one (Vermont) and one is a tossup (Virginia).
All these states except Virginia are likely to be announced right at 6 p.m. I fully expect that the media will mislead us in one of two ways. First someone is likely to tell us that “Romney has jumped out to an early lead, and the Democrats are worried.” This would be ridiculous. No one has thought Obama would win any of those four states. Secondly, someone is likely to tell you that Virginia is a “must win” for Obama, since he won the state in 2008. It’s not. Virginia went Republican in 2004 and 2000, if Obama wins it again, Romney is in a deep hole, but a loss for Obama is not a problem for him.
The Virginia Senate race is very close with only a 2 percent lead for the Democrat, Tim Kaine. This would be a significant early indication if Democrats can hang on to control of the Senate, as they attempt to retain the seat held by the retiring Jim Webb.
6:30 p.m. Baseline: Obama: 21 Romney: 64 Tossup: 13
Three states are closed now: West Virginia is a lock for Romney; North Carolina is close, but a probable Romney win; and all eyes are on Ohio’s 18 electoral votes. This is a close state that Obama needs and is included in our baseline estimate for Obama. It is unlikely to be called right at 6:30 p.m. – it took two hours in 2008. Watch to see if North Carolina hangs up for a while. Obama won it by less than 1 percent in 2008 and it took hours to be declared.
While you are waiting for Ohio, see if they call the Senate race between Sherrod Brown and Josh Mandel. Brown (D) is leading by 5 percent.
The other factor in play is that Ohio’s secretary of state (who supervises elections) is a Republican who has been a major proponent of the “voter fraud” concept and has issued, as late as Friday, a series of rulings that are likely to suppress the vote total. Expect some major conflict over this if we have a close election.
7:00 p.m. Baseline: Obama: 117 Romney: 111 Tossup: 42
A host of states close now and most of them are pretty one sided. Three are of interest here: Florida (a tossup), New Hampshire (expected for Romney) and Pennsylvania (expected for Obama).
So watch to see how quickly New Hampshire and Pennsylvania are declared – that can give you a clue to how the national race is running. Florida is likely not to be called for hours – it was after 10 p.m. in 2008 when it went for Obama.
So, shortly after 7 p.m. we might well see this total on the media’s board:
Obama: 79 (awaiting Ohio and Pennsylvania)
Romney: 92 (awaiting North Carolina and New Hampshire)
Virginia and Florida’s 42 votes up for grabs.
Any difference from these totals will give you a clue to the race, but remember that the clue is not symmetrical. In other words, if Obama is ahead of 79 by 7:35 p.m. or shortly after, then things are going very well for him and re-election seems assured. If Romney is a bit ahead of 92 it means we could be heading toward a cliff-hanger election and a long night.
Two Senate races of note are close also. In Massachusetts, Democrat Elizabeth Warren is four points ahead of Scott Brown and in Missouri, Democrat Clair McCaskill has boomed out to a seven point lead over Todd “legitimate rape’ Akin.
7:30 p. m. Baseline: Obama: 117 Romney: 117 Tossup: 42
This election Arkansas is the only state that closes now, and it is a reliable six points for Romney.
8:00 p.m. Baseline: Obama: 191 Romney: 181 Tossup: 51
Another big batch of state close now including Minnesota. All three tossup states are closed now.
Most state here are one-sided, but Wisconsin and Michigan might take a while to be declared for Obama. Colorado is the remaining tossup that closed now.
Even if Obama has won all the tossup states by now (unlikely), he still wouldn’t have enough electoral votes to clinch the election.
The Minnesotans among us will be watching House races in the 5th (Ellison, Democrat) and 6th districts (Bachmann, Repubican), in which both incumbents are expected to be re-elected.
9:00 p. m. Baseline: Obama: 203 Romney: 196 Tossup: 51
Five states close now: Utah, Kansas and Montana are all strong for Romney; Iowa and Nevada are expected for Obama, but are fairly close. Subtract those 12 points from Obama (because they take time to be declared), and it is entirely possible that just after 9 p.m. he will be behind in the electoral vote count. Expect much pontificating from the media about how they were right all along to call this whole election “too close to call.” As usual, they will be wrong, as the entry for 10 p.m. will demonstrate.
Even if all the tossups have gone for Obama by now, he would still likely not be at 270. All you need to watch is if Obama tops 199 prior to 10 p.m. But this could be a long hour.
Senate races in Nevada and Montana are very close; the results here may give you some insight into how those states may have voted for president.
If your scorecard for the evening has been getting messy, we can take this hour to recoup. There have been a number of close states included in Obama and Romney’s baseline numbers (projected leads of 2 to 5 percent) as well as the tossup states. If we break them out we have:
Obama Romney Tossup
Baseline: 203 196 51
Tossup states
Florida, Virginia, Colorado 0 0 51
Narrow Obama lead
Ohio, New Hampshire
Wisconsin, Iowa, Nevada 44 0 0
Narrow Romney lead
North Carolina 0 15 0
Totals less close states 159 181 0
So you can quickly see if these states have come down as expected and if our baseline numbers need to be updated.
10:00 p.m. Baseline: Obama: 281 Romney: 203 Tossup: 51
Kaboom. At 10 p.m. California, Hawaii, Oregon and Washington close. Obama is currently ahead by 12 or more points in California, Hawaii and Washington with 71 electoral votes, so these states will likely be declared promptly at 10 p.m. Thus, if he was at 203 by 9:58 or even 199, he will go over the top at 10 p.m.
Only Alaska is still out there (until midnight), to give Romney his final 3 points.
Now come the concession speeches, and we can see how much the losers have to walk back from what they said during the race. Now we can take bets on how long it will be before somebody cautions Obama that “he didn’t get a mandate” and that “this is still a conservative nation” and that he can’t govern without the permission of the Republicans.