February 21, 2012

Obama Faces Fearful Political Geography in November

By Adam Yoshida
The geographic concentration of much of President Obama's political support in a few large Blue States and urban areas means that he could be defeated for re-election this November even while winning the popular vote.  What few seem to have seriously considered so far is how daunting the present shape of the political battlefield actually is for the President on a state-by-state level, and what that means when it comes to using national tracking polls as a metric to guess who would win a Presidential election held on any given day.  If you look closely enough at the numbers, it becomes clear that it is both mathematically and practically possible for the right Republican candidate to assemble a majority in the Electoral College while losing the popular vote by as much as 5%. Let's travel back in time to 2008.  Obama won the popular vote with a margin of 7.27%.  He won the Electoral College 365-173.  In the intervening time, the post-2010 reapportionment of...(Read Full Article)