According to the latest Real Clear Politics "poll of polls", Obama leads Romney for the popular vote. All Real Clear does is average the latest X number of polls.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/us/general_election_romney_vs_obama-1171.htmlThe tally is 48.8% to 48.1%, which leaves 3.1% points up for grabs. Of that, roughly one percent typically goes to minor third party candidates, at a minimum (last election it was 1.6% but Nader had some name recognition).
Of the remaining 2.1%, they say the undecideds usually break 2-1 for the challenger. Thus, Romney picks up 1.4% and Obama 0.7%.
Do the math, and the final result should be Obama 49.5%, Romney 49.5%! A statistical dead heat in the popular vote. If the third party vote is > 1%, then slight advantage to Obama, if it's <1%, slight advantage to Romney.
As for the electoral vote, I predict 281 to 259 for Obama. I base it on the following. Currently I think Obama, per Real Clear, has a 201 to 191 advantage in states that are "locks" (my term, Real Clear is a bit more nuanced).
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/2012_elections_electoral_college_map.htmlOf the states supposedly still in play per Real Clear, I concede Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania to Obama, and North Carolina to Romney. These are states where the advantage of the candidate exceeds the margin of error of the polls, and I think they go the way they are leaning.
That brings the total to Obama 247, Romney 206.
Next, there are the states that have the margin much greater than 1%, coupled with a qualitative analysis of how I think they will go. This gives Ohio, Nevada, New Hampshire, and Iowa to Obama, while Florida then goes to Romney. My qualitative analysis is that the North favors Obama, the South Romney, that Nevada has gamblers, drug addicts and prostitutes (a Democrat base) vs. casino workers (Mormons from Utah but way outnumbered) and that the Midwest (Iowa, Ohio) has a base of populist blue collar workers and farmer that don't take kindly to Romney's "47%" remark (based on living in Indiana for 15 years and how the polls broke after that remark...5-7% jump for Obama across the Midwest, not erased by his horrible Debate 1 performance).
That gets us to Obama 281, Romney 235.
That leaves just Colorado and Virginia, which have a < 2 % advantage for Obama. However, I am willing to concede those two to Romney. I consider them a toss up, and my guess...which is all it is....is that since the South and West culturally are much stronger for Romney, they will break his way at the end of the day.
That gets us to the grand total of Obama 281, Romney 259.
Now, this also means that the story out there about Ohio is still true. If the rest of my analysis is correct, and Ohio, which is just barely inside the margin of error for Obama (it's 2.9% for Obama and the margin is usually about 3%), then Romney could still just barely take it, 277-263, if Ohio flips. But of course, he would have to hold on to Colorado and Virginia in that case, and I already said those two were coin flips that I concede to Romney based on a pretty weak assumption.
Make no mistake, it will be razor-close either way, but the likely outcome is a narrow victory for Obama.
This is not a partisan prediction, just issued for fun.
I have been following the polls since April, and closely for the last two months, and I think I have some insight, so I might as well post it here.
