A frontpager at Redstate.com made an unremarkable claim yesterday: that if the election were held right now President Obama would probably win a very narrow victory. While that sounds reasonable given the national polls of late, Redstate readers were outraged. How could he say that? Hasn't he seen the Gallup polling? Rasmussen? Obama is going to get trounced like a cross between Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale, they exclaim.
Well they're right in one sense: if the election were held today it wouldn't be very close.
More beyond the doodle.
Here's a little bit of the post Redstate readers found so appalling:
If the Presidential Election were to take place tomorrow, Barack Obama would win a 2nd term by a razor-thin margin. He has basically led Mitt Romney from wire-to-wire thus far, but has failed to put him away.
Here are some of the reactions:
From comment number 1:
You are dead wrong….if the election was held today Obama would lose!! I will take Dick Morris’s analysis over yours anytime. Obama has not been able to bet above 46 percent in any LIKELY VOTER poll….registered polls with slants of 5,6,7,9 or more Dems does not cut it. Dick Morris has said repeatedly that undecideds break 8 to 1 to the Challenger. He has done polling in all the battleground states and Obama is losing…Morris uses Likely Voters and will tell you 40 percent of Registered Voters DO NOT VOTE!! and they slant D…Rasmussen has had Romney 47-48 percent over close to last two weeks…Obama has not gone over 45 percent….LIKELY VOTERS….new poll out in Ohio has Romney 49 to 42…and that is Ohio….No you are wrong
Another:
I am in the Morris camp. The World’sGreatest Orator, the Citizen-of-the-World President would be blown out if election held tomorrow.
I think his ratings continue to be artificially propped up by respondents wanting to be “well thought of”.
This would be 1988 all over – and may be heading towards 1980/84.
Confidence! Here's another who is not thinking "narrow victory":
Don’t know what polls you are following, but Rasmussen has had Romney up for quite awhile now. I don’t want to get overconfident, but we are potentially looking at Reagan ’84 type landslide numbers.
And another:
this is looking like deja vu of the 1980 reagan/carter race
Another wants to know which orifice the writer pulled his analysis out of:
I don’t know where you get your stats my friend, but the economic, polling, and anecdotal evdence is starkly contrary to your analysis.
The front pager responds that his source was RealClearPolitics.com
So I decided to head to RCP, which aggregates polls and, if anything, may lean right compared to HuffPollster. My question for RCP: if the election were held today what would the electoral college result be, who would win?
Handily, RCP also aggregates state polling on Obama vs. Romney and has a handy page complete with a map. If the election were held today here's how the 538 electoral college votes would be allotted:
President Obama: 332
Willard Romney: 206
Well Redstate readers, it's not quite Reaganesque but it will do.
p.s. Nate Silver's forecast and "nowcast" have been revised this evening and they have President Obama nearing 300 electoral votes.