Licensed, as I am, to
pump gas and commit punditry in all 50 states and the District of
Columbia, I am obligated to make a prediction.
Or, in other words: It's time to guess.
Three weeks ago, on NBC's
"Meet the Press," I ventured that something happened at that Denver
debate beyond President Barack Obama not showing up for work.
The president, I noted,
had never run a campaign to get re-elected, just a campaign to stop the
other guy, Mitt Romney, from getting elected. When the Romney who
arrived to debate was not the sulfur-breathing demon the president had
led us to expect, Obama was left with no campaign at all. "This is a
man with two empty holsters," I noted. "His campaign could collapse."
I think it did.
Then an unexpected voter named Sandy resuscitated Obama's campaign.
What factors must we understand in these final hours to identify the winner of this election?
First, we'd have to understand who is going to win independents.
Four years ago, Obama
won independents by 8 points over John McCain. After the Denver debate,
that advantage reversed itself. In recent Washington Post/ABC News
tracking polls, Obama has trailed Romney among independent voters by 16
to 20 percentage points. Recent CBS polls also reported that Romney has
led Obama among independents by 5% in Ohio, 6% in Florida and a massive
21% in Virginia.
If this lead among
independents held through Election Day, Romney would win these states.
Post-Sandy survey data, however, indicates the storm may have blown away
Romney's advantage with independents, at least temporarily.
The Politico/GW
Battleground Poll has the president pulling within 1 point among
independent voters, 43% to 44%. Our own PurplePoll of swing states has
the president taking a one point lead among purple state independents,
45% to 44%. However, the final NBC/WSJ national poll reports that Romney
is winning independents by 7 points. And the new CNN/ORC poll gives Romney a 22% lead with independents.
Who wins independents
might depend upon whether Obama's "Sandy bounce" was a real change or a
temporary bump in the president's fortunes. If voters believe the
president's energetic response indicates he has learned a lesson and
will be more responsive to them in a second term, this election could
break Obama's way.
Second, to identify the winner, we'd have to see whether Romney has closed the gender gap.
The latest Associated
Press poll has Romney erasing a 16-point gender gap in the past
month. Pew Research tells us Romney's and Obama's favorability ratings
among women voters are now nearly equal. Pew analyst Michael Dimock
expects the gender gap "to look very similar to the last few election
cycles, with women somewhere between 6 and 8 points to favor Obama, and
fairly consistent with where we've been since 1980." Our own post-Sandy
PurplePoll has Romney closing the gender gap to 7 points, enough for him
to win.
Third, to call the
election for Obama, I'd have to believe he doesn't hit his head on the
ceiling every time he stands, but he does. The president's percentage
number is stuck some 2% or 3% short of the 50% mark.
The Real Clear Politics
national average has Obama stuck at 47.8% with Romney tight on his heels
at 47.3%. Our last two PurplePolls of likely voters in swing states
have Obama at 47% to 48%.
Surveys that show a
higher percentage for the president, cracking the 50% line, such as the
overcooked Marist poll in Ohio, are preposterously overweighted with
Democrats.
Marist unexplainably
paints Ohio 9% more Democrat than Republican, with the Republican share
of the electorate lower today than in 2008, when Republicans were
swallowing razor blades and Obama mania was cresting. Other surveys,
which perhaps have spent less time in the crock pot, show a different
Ohio: A CBS/NYT poll reports Republican enthusiasm outstripping
Democrat enthusiasm in Ohio by 14 points.
My experience is that
polarizing incumbents running against acceptable challengers can count
on getting just about exactly what they are getting in the last poll,
heading into the election -- and no more. The electoral ceiling over
Obama's head is hard. In my view, it is a couple of points too low for
him to win re-election.
What else would we have to understand to identify the likely winner?
Fourth, we'd have to see
who has captured the powerful remnants of the 2010 surge that renewed
the "silent majority's" voice and secured GOP control of the House of
Representatives.
Anecdotal evidence and
survey data tell us that Romney has momentum with white, working-class
men in swing states and nationally.
A new poll from the
conservative American Future Fund has Romney within a point in
blue-collar Minnesota. Obama's campaign is suddenly running ads in a
working-class state such as Pennsylvania that he had previously put in
his pocket. New data has Romney tied with Obama in Pennsylvania, 47% to
47%, within 2 points in Ohio, and tied with the president in New
Hampshire.
Meanwhile, Romney is
drawing the largest crowds of his campaign, packed with those
Reagan-Democratic men, in, of all places, Ohio. Early on Election
Night, if Romney starts winning blue-collar, working class counties in
western Pennsylvania, he will win them everywhere, including Ohio, Iowa,
New Hampshire and Minnesota. At this point, it is almost impossible
for Romney to win the presidency small. He either loses or puts around
300 electoral votes in the bank.
Fifth, to identify our
next president, we would have to understand who has the edge, compared
with '08, in early and absentee voting.
GOP sources tell me that
in Ohio, for example, Republicans have increased their early turnout by
more than 100,000 from 2008 while Democrat turnout is down 150,000.
That is a 250,000-vote swing in a state Obama only won by 260,000 votes
at the apogee of his popularity. This pattern, I'm informed, holds in
other swing states.
Sixth, we have to
examine whether the Obama campaign can compensate for dimming passion
among its supporters with a more energetic turn-out-the-vote machine on
Election Day.
It's fair to admit that
Team Obama has had a four-year head start, nearly endless resources and a
brilliant team of social media wizards to build an unmatched
get-out-the-vote operation. But Obama has disappointed even his own
supporters. The thrill of his historic political accomplishment is
gone. Without passion to fuel the machine, a turnout engine is just a
collection of bolts.
My experience is that the Beatles were right: Money can't buy you love, or turnout.
Seventh, to identify our next president, we have to understand how publicly embarrassing it is to be a Republican these days.
Hollywood, the music
industry, the news media, the fashion industry, the intellectual elite
and the news media all fawn over Obama. To identify yourself as a
Republican Romney voter, however, is to admit that you are culturally
backward. In effect, survey questioners are asking Obama voters if they
self-identify as cool. They are asking Romney voters if they would
publicly admit to wearing socks with sandals.
Too often, Republicans dare not speak their name, because they know the cool kids won't invite them to play.
This phenomenon, the
reticent Republican factor, like the shy Tory factor found in British
polls in the '90s, could easily account for a 4% to 5% unexpected
pro-Romney bump on Election Day.
Late polls in 1980 gave
Ronald Reagan only a 2% to 3% lead over Jimmy Carter. Reagan ended up
winning by nearly 10%. For the same reason, I would expect this
campaign's final public opinion polls and exit polls this Tuesday to
underreport the Republican vote by a handful of points.
Add it all up, and this is a close call. Perhaps it is best made both with my heart and my head.
Four years ago, Obama's
campaign claimed a unique energy. Electing the first black president of
the United States was a singular moment of national pride. Now the
Obama campaign pretends the opposite: They tell us that history-making
event was ordinary. Team Obama and many others model their turnout
predictions and surveys upon 2008, overloading them with Democrats. They
would have us think that the electoral cosmos has been realigned in a
stable and permanent way.
In the end, I cannot
embrace as common the rarest of political astronomies. I do not believe
Obama's comet comes around every day.
That leaves Mitt Romney as the next president of the United States.
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