Minimal Victory. Democrats: 272, Republicans 266
This is a 'minimal' map for an Obama electoral victory in 2012. I constructed this using the new official Census numbers for electoral votes for each state. I eliminated one by one the states in which Obama's margin of victory was the smallest until the next state could not be eliminated without going below 270 electoral votes.
Here are eliminated states in order:
State | EVotes | 2008 Margin |
---|
North Carolina | 15 | 0.33% |
Indiana | 11 | 1.03% |
Nebraska 2nd CD | 1 | 1.19% |
Florida | 29 | 2.81% |
Ohio | 18 | 4.58% |
Virginia | 13 | 6.30% |
Coincidentally, these states are exactly the states which Obama won by less than his national margin of victory (7.26%).
Let's look at three things:
- How might the Republicans win?
- Are the Republican gains via the census significant?
- Alternative Democratic victory scenarios
How might the Republican win?
What is the most likely path to a Republican victory? The next state to be eliminated from the Obama column on the basis of margin of victory in 2008 is Colorado (8.95%). But I don't believe the Republican path to victory is really through Colorado, but rather through any of four other states that saw significant Republican victories in 2010:
- New Hampshire (9.61%): Republicans won hugely, winning veto-proof majorities in their House and Senate from a position of being in the minority previously. They also elected a Republican Senator and two Republican House members. They did re-elect their Democratic Governor.
- Iowa (9.53%): Iowans elected a Republican governor and a Republican House, leaving Democrats hanging on by a thread in their Senate. Their congressional delegation is still majority Democratic.
- Minnesota (10.24%): Democrats barely won the Governor's race, while the legislature went from majority Democratic to majority Republican in both houses. Five out of nine congresspeople are now Republicans.
- Wisconsin (13.9%): Russ Feingold was defeated in his Senate re-election bid, and Wisconsin elected a Republican Governor. A majority of Wisconsin's US House members are now Republicans. The Wisconsin House is firmly controlled by Republicans, 68-38, as is the Senate, 19-14.
Whereas Colorado (8.95%) elected a Democratic governor and a Democratic Senator. The legislature is split, with Republicans barely controlling the House (33-32) and Democrats in firm control of the Senate. Further, demographics suggest that the midwest states more than Colorado are at risk to Democrats. Colorado has a rapidly rising Hispanic population, which will almost certainly vote super-majority Democratic, as it did in 2008.
If any of these four states flips Republican, Republicans will win the White House under this minimalist scenario.
How big a difference do the new Electoral College numbers make?.
Democrats have lost a net of 6 electoral votes using the above map: 2 from New York, 1 each from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Illinois, Iowa and Massachusetts, while picking up 1 each from Nevada and Washington.
It turns out that six more electoral votes would not help the Democrats using this 'minimal' algorithm. As noted, the next state to be eliminated would be Colorado, with 9 electoral votes. If the old electoral distribution were still in place but the Democrats lost Colorado, the result would be a 269-269 tie, and a tie now goes to the Republicans since they solidly control the majority of state delegations in the House of Representatives.
On the other hand, those six votes would have given the Democrats leave to lose New Hampshire or Iowa and still win the election.
On the gripping hand, there are plausible scenarios for a tie given the new electoral map (see below), so control of the House by Republicans could prove decisive and utterly catastrophic.
Alternative Democratic victory scenarios.
What states might Obama hope to win that I've eliminated from his 2008 totals?
The obvious one is Virginia, since of all the states I eliminated it was carried by Obama by the biggest margin (6.30%). Further, the state's changing demographics seem to favor a continued Democratic shift. On the other hand the 2009 election, which installed a Republican Governor, and the 2010 election, making the Congressional delegation Republican by 8-3, does not provide us with a lot of confidence for 2012.
But if Virginia were to vote Democratic, that does provide the Democrats with a bit of breathing room. Here is a reasonable scenario for a bare Democratic victory with Virginia.
Democrats: 271, Republicans 267
(We could substitute Minnesota for Wisconsin with the same results, or use Iowa and get a slightly bigger Democratic victory)
Here is a dreaded but plausible 'tie goes to the House Republicans' scenario with a Democratic Virginia:
The House Decides. Democrats: 269, Republicans 269
(with Minnesota again interchangeable with Wisconsin.)
There really isn't too much to say about other alternative scenarios. Yes, we could talk about the President winning Florida, but if so it's pretty much game over for the Republicans. We could investigate what happens if the President wins Ohio, but you would expect that as Ohio goes so goes at least one of Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa, producing another game-set-match scenario for the Democrats. And if North Carolina again votes Democratic it's hard to imagine Virginia not doing so. In the Florida and North Carolina/Virginia scenario Democrats could lose all four of NH, MN, WI and IA and still barely win, 271-267 or 270-268! But I'm not taking bets on Obama's chances in North Carolina or Florida in 2012 at any reasonable odds at this point.
So what's the upshot?
Unless the economy improves like gangbusters in the next 20 months or the Republicans nominate Sarah Palin, it looks like the election is going to be a nailbiter. New Hampshire, with its lowly four electoral votes, could again play a key role, just as it did in 2000 (flipping New Hampshire, which Bush won by the tiny margin of 1.27%, would have won Gore his victory regardless of Florida). Whether Democrats turn out to vote in Virgina may alternatively prove decisive.
There almost certainly won't be a primary battle royale for Democrats this time around as there was in 2008, but the election itself could be as tense as they come.