This is the website of Abulsme Noibatno Itramne (also known as Sam Minter). Posts here are rare these days. For current stuff, follow me on Mastodon

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@abulsme Updates from 2012-07-31 (UTC)

@abulsme Updates from 2012-07-30 (UTC)

@abulsme Updates from 2012-07-29 (UTC)

@abulsme Updates from 2012-07-28 (UTC)

Electoral College: Wisconsin Blue Again, Romney’s Path Narrows

Chart and map from the Abulsme.com 2012 Electoral College Prediction page. Both assume Obama vs Romney with no strong third party candidate and show polling as it currently exists. Things will change before election day. On the map red is Romney, blue is Obama, gold states are too close to call. Lines on the chart represent how many more electoral votes a candidate would have than is needed to tie under several different scenarios. Up is good for Obama, Down is good for Romney.

One state moves today:

In March Obama had a lead of over 10% in Wisconsin, but by May that was less than 5%, putting Wisconsin on our swing state list. It has bounced around the 5% line since then. Now Obama’s lead in the five poll average once again tops 5%, so Wisconsin moves to “Weak Obama” and takes the possibility of Romney winning it off the table for the moment.

Romney Obama
Romney Best Case 278 260
Current Status 206 332
Obama Best Case 180 358

Before the last couple of weeks, Romney had been steadily eroding Obama’s lead in a bunch of blue states. He kept pulling states out of the “Weak Obama” category into “Lean Obama” putting them into contention as swing states, with margins close enough that Obama’s lead could conceivably evaporate overnight if the news cycles were favorable to Romney.

Romney’s best case in my model went from losing 259-279 on May 16th* to winning 311-227 from Jun 29th to July 18th. Although none of them had yet gone over the line to his side, that was a move of 52 electoral votes into the zone where they were within reach.

The last two weeks has undone much of that… Michigan (16), Virginia (13) and Wisconsin (10) moved out of reach. This was compensated by Nevada (6) swinging again, but in terms of the net total, 33 fewer electoral votes are in the pool for Romney. This is not a good trend for Romney.

At his new best case of 278-260, Romney is only 9 electoral votes over the tie line. This means that of the close states, Florida (29), Ohio (18), North Carolina (15) and Tennessee (11) are now must win states. He could afford to lose one of Iowa (6), Nevada (6) and New Hampshire (4) and still win, but he can’t lose two of those.

If he wins every other close state, but loses Colorado (9) we would actually have 269-269, throwing things to the House. This is highly unlikely, but would be fun. (It would also likely lead to a Romney win in the House.)

Romney has been behind in the “Current” model all year long. The progress he had made in June in the “Romney Best Case” model has been evaporating. It isn’t looking great for Romney right now. We still have over three months to go though. Maybe at some point Romney will start gaining some real traction?

* At the time it looked like Romney’s best case was winning 272 to 266, but a later inclusion of a Virginia poll from April retroactively moved Virginia (13) out of swing state status and into “Weak Obama” for that date.

@abulsme Updates from 2012-07-27 (UTC)

Curmudgeon’s Corner: Instinct to React

In the latest Curmudgeon’s Corner Sam and Ivan talk about:

  • Aurora Shooting
  • 2012 Election Update
  • Syria

Recorded on 22 Jul 2012

Length this week – 54:46

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@abulsme Updates from 2012-07-26 (UTC)

Electoral College: Two States Stop Swinging

Chart and map from the Abulsme.com 2012 Electoral College Prediction page. Both assume Obama vs Romney with no strong third party candidate. Both show polling as it currently exists. Things will change before election day. On the map red is Romney, blue is Obama, gold states are too close to call. Lines on the chart represent how many more electoral votes a candidate would have than is needed to tie under several different scenarios. Up is good for Obama, Down is good for Romney.

Two states change status today, both moving out of swing status, one toward Obama, one toward Romney. In order by electoral weight:

First up, Michigan, with 16 electoral votes. Obama’s lead in Michigan had dropped from over 10% in the 5 poll average back in April, down to just barely over 1% in June. It has now rebounded to 5.6%, which I consider a large enough lead to take it out of reach for Romney, moving it into the “Weak Obama” category. Now, the last three polls, all released in the last couple days, are all over the place… +14 Obama, +1 Romney, +6 Obama. (The two older polls in my average at the moment are +5 Obama and +4 Obama). So there may be a lot of uncertainty here until we get more polls to validate where we really are. But we average out the admittedly huge polling differences, and end up with a decent Obama lead.

Next up is Missouri with 10 electoral votes. Missouri has been pretty sparsely polled this year, despite most of those polls showing a pretty close race (with Romney slightly ahead). You’d think it would be polled more often since even though there was a consistent Romney lead, it was a small lead, and thus the state might have been vulnerable. At this point though three of the past 5 polls show a Romney lead more than 5%, and the 5 poll average is +5.5% Romney, so Missouri moves out of my swing state category into “Weak Romney”.

The result of all this?

Romney Obama
Romney Best Case 288 250
Current Status 206 332
Obama Best Case 180 358

Both Romney’s Best Case and Obama’s best case get a little worse. Since Romney’s best case is weaker, this is more critical to him. His best case now has him with only 19 more electoral votes than needed to tie. This makes Florida once again a must win state. With this configuration of close states, unless he captures some states where Obama is ahead by more than 5% right now, Romney can’t win without Florida. He can still afford to lose Ohio, but only if he then wins EVERY other close state.

With this update Romney’s paths to victory once again narrow. In order to get to a more comfortable place, he needs to be pulling more of Obama’s weak states back into contention. Pennsylvania (20), Michigan (16) and Virginia (13), I’m looking at you.

And then of course he has to actually start pulling states over the line to his side. The “current status” where everybody gets all the states they are even slightly ahead in, hasn’t changed at all since May… We’re at Obama 332 Romney 206… which is only slightly different from where we were in FEBRUARY (Obama 328 Romney 210). There has been movement around the edges, and some short term fluctuations in April and May, but for the most part, not much has moved at all… if Romney wants to win, he needs to start getting some more traction in some of the critical states pretty soon.

The line is always “a lot can change before November”. There is no question that is very true. But there is a lot less time left to make that change happen than there was. Tick tock.

Mom Visit Second Wednesday

Checking out the telescope

Hugging Grama Ruth goodbye

Really? More pictures?

Dad hugs his Mom too, and Alex gets in the act

And everybody! (Except the picture shy one taking the picture)

Sitting on the curb waiting for Grama Ruth to leave

Bye Grama Ruth!

And off she went in her rental car, and the visit was over. :-)