Princeton Election Consortium: Obama 332 EV, Romney 206 - Obama wins 51% popular vote.

[Drunken Irishman]

http://election.princeton.edu/

President: Obama vote share 51.5 +/- 0.2 %, Obama 332 EV to Romney 206 EV. Current evaluation: Obama’s going to win. As of today it’s 7 sigma (huge). For November I still give him 7-1 odds, favorable.

[HopeHoops]

1. Give it a few hours.

[a kennedy]

2. Is there anyway we can see how the POTUS was doing four years ago against McCain??

Just kinda curious. Thanks.

[Drunken Irishman]

3. Here...

http://election.princeton.edu/page/6/

You can go back and look through their '08 predictions.

Their final prediction had Obama winning 352 electoral votes to McCain's 186 - in the end, Obama exceeded their expectations.

To give you a better indication this far out, on July 30th, 2008, this was their prediction:

Our graphics aren’t quite up yet, so here are today’s unadorned results. Based on 137 polls (up to 3 per state), the current median outcome is Obama 306 EV, McCain 232 EV (95% confidence intervals Obama [275,327], McCain [211,263]. The Popular Meta-Margin is Obama +3.1%. For an explanation of what these quantities mean, see the old site.

So, Obama is doing better today than he was at the end of July four years ago.

[a kennedy]

13. This is great news.....

thank you.

[Rosanna Lopez]

4. 51%

51% is a pretty small share of the popular vote when you think about it.

Very depressing.

A win is a win, but to see almost half the country vote for a vile individual like Romney does not bode well for the future of humanity.

[Drunken Irishman]

6. 51% would be significant...

As the only presidents in modern American history to receive a majority of the vote in both elections are Eisenhower & Reagan.

Nixon received 43% in '68 and 60.7% in '72. Carter received 50% in '76 and 41% in '80. Reagan received 50% in '80 and 58% in '84. Bush received 53% in '88 and 37% in '92. Clinton received 43% in '92 and 49% in '96. Bush received 48% in '00 and 50% in '04.

51% amounts to an electoral landslide. So, I'll take it.

[Hawaii Hiker]

8. It's actually very difficult to get 60% of vote in a presidential election

Even Reagan didn't get 60% in 1984, when he won everywhere but DC and Minnesota (think he got 58%)...LBJ did get 60% in his 1964 route...

In this day & age with the deep political divides, I'll gladly take Obama 51%, or more importantly, 270 EV's...

[fujiyama]

10. In terms of the %, Johnson still takes it in the modern era

"Johnson, who had successfully associated himself with Kennedy's popularity, won 61.1% of the popular vote, the highest won by a candidate since 1820."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1964

Romney is a much bigger lunatic than Goldwater (but so was Bush and arguably Reagan was as well), and has fewer principles. At least Goldwater was honest about his nuttiness. Romney is a snake and perhaps the biggest liar to have run for the office.

But then again '64 was a very unique election, coming less than a year after an assassinated president. I'm reading the Caro book now. It's fascinating...

[Hawaii Hiker]

12. I agree about Romney being a snake and biggest liar to run for office

Even Goldwater had some moderate views, namely on social issues....

Romney would go far right on every issue, and truly would take us back to the 12th century...

[bluestateguy]

5. What is 7 sigma?

What is that supposed to mean?

[Drunken Irishman]

7. No idea! haha

[DavidDvorkin]

9. It means that the probability that Obama will win is 99.999999999744%

[Cali_Democrat]

11. 7 sigma

Meaning 7 standard deviations? Greater than 99% chance, assuming normal distribution?

[Drunken Irishman]

14. From July. Wow.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

15. Wow!

[fujiyama]

16. Wow! Very impressive!