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Electoral College Map 2012, official Florida results still pending.
If the election on Tuesday had been closer it is possible that President Obama could have won the Electoral College while losing the national popular vote. Looking at the national vote in the key swing states, Obama significantly outperformed in the states that mattered.
President Obama ended up winning the popular vote 50.5 percent to Mitt Romney at 48 percent, yet Obama won the tipping point state of Colorado by a significantly larger margin of 51.2 percent to 46.5 percent.
If, across the board, 1.8 percent of Obama voters switched to Romney, Romney would have won the national popular vote by a wide margin but still have lost the presidency. That increase would have resulted in Romney also carrying Florida, Virginia and Ohio, but that would have only given Romney 266 electoral votes.
Obama ended winning by a large enough margin that this issue did not come into play, but a look at the results shows concerns about a possible Electoral College/national popular vote split going into the election were well founded. It is possible Romney could have easily gotten a million more votes than Obama and still have lost the election.
The fact that our election rules means that the candidate a clear majority of Americans voted for could still easily lose should be a national disgrace. Hopefully now that the Electoral College has shifted from benefiting Republicans in 2000 to strongly favoring Democrats today, we can finally get bipartisan support for ending this idiotic way of selecting a leader. It is time for every American’s vote to count the same.
Map by Gage Skidmore under Creative Commons license.
20 Comments
Well, it looks like we won’t be seeing any “Petraus for Prez” yard signs in 2016…
Republicans never give up and never back down. (As compared to Democrats who can’t wait to give up and back down.)
Look for Republicans governing in swing states to work hard to change the way their electoral college votes are divided. This was talked about in Pennsylvania and it is being talked about today in Ohio. Wisconsin, Michigan, and Iowa will probably take a look at this scheme.
Republicans in swing states will try to prevent Democrats from a winner take all electoral vote count. Republicans in the South will keep to a winner take all system.
You’re assuming too much about the good faith of the Democrats. Now that they have the advantage what makes you think they want to give it up?
The big question is why does it matter in practice? If Obama had been elected without winning the popular vote, what real disadvantages would he encounter vs. enjoying the popular vote support he has today..?
There is no doubt that the republicana have a steep hill to climb to win the White House under the current demographics. But lets’s not underestimate the democrats ability to nominate a poor candidate too and run a dismal campaign. Not mentioning any names mind you. Although the republicans are famouns for passing absolutely NO legislation. The democrats are infamous for passing bad legislation not to mention that trying to impose order on the democrats is like trying to herd cats.
That was a rhetorical question, right??? :-)
It would provide the oppo with that smidge of support for their illegitimacy arguments.
That said, the swing states came in different from the rest of the country because the candidates ACTUALLY CAMPAIGNED there.
I’ll say it again. The popular vote these days is meaningless. There are many states where people simply dont bother to turn out. Sometimes ballot initiatives might intice people but say you live in California. If you were going to vote dem you know that your vote is just another tiny drop inthe bucket. So you could just stay home. If you are a repub then you know you’ve already lost so why bother.
Or like in my area, districting has created “permanent” seats. Unless there is something really odd happening, the House seat will always go to the dem or repub depending on where in town you live. One dem seat was created with most of the city and then 2 others split the rest so the dem vote is always diluted and a repub will always win. There is no reason to even bother with the primaries since the incumbants will be there until they die or retire…and these days they dont even retire when they are literally dying.
If Republicans really do start losing elections the way Democrats were before, eventually they’ll change their party, just as the Democrats did. But that process takes a long time. If they lose the next one, too, they probably will start thinking seriously about making some adjustments to their party platform, I would imagine. But as far as the electoral college is concerned, Republicans didn’t seem at all concerned about not winning the popular vote in 2000. Real change will probably take an election where the Rs win the popular vote but lose the electoral college and feel the sting themselves, but I hope I’m wrong.
Sandy resulted in a depressed vote in populous areas of NY and NJ (no idea how much, but hundreds of thousands had other things on their minds, like trying to stay fed and warm without power or heat), and I’m sure that affected the size of Obama’s popular vote margin.
If you live in California, in every single election year there will be something on the ballot that will affect your life far more than who wins president, so I have no sympathy for Californians who say that they can’t be bothered to vote because it doesn’t matter. I especially have no sympathy for leftists and progressives who say this; with a few more votes we could have abolished the death penalty and could have had GMO labels on food like most of the civilized world requires.
Proportional voting. More direct democracy.
Yeah, they’ll do that. Right after they “get money out of politics!” Yep.
Keep Hoping, though. That, and the illusion that your participation matters, are the only thing standing between you and clinical depression.
Those who point to the popular vote as evidence of a very tight contest, as much of the media did before the election, should consider two things: first, that is not the way the game is played here (unfortunately). If the popular vote determined the presidency, the Obama team would have put more resources into big states like California and New York to ensure that Obama would win the popular vote by a wider margin. Instead, the resources went into swing states, in order to ensure a victory in the electoral college vote.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/11/07
Nonvoters favor Barack Obama over Mitt Romney by a wide margin (59% to 24%). While most nonvoters (64%) have a favorable view of Obama, just half as many (32%) view Romney favorably.
http://www.people-press.org/2012/11/01/nonvoters-who-they-are-what-they-think/1/
I don’t think the Republicans want anything to do with the popular vote.
as it turns out, the electoral college is a counterweight to citizens united, as was just demonstrated. If Obama had to educate all national voters and get out the vote in all fifty states, big money would have won easily. same is true going forward in all elections.
In other words, if a candidate only has to win in 10 tossup states, he can get out his message with a lot less cash than doing the same in 50 states. that is exactly what happened this year. Romney and Bain Capital were well known to all the swing state voters before Karl Rove dumped massive dollars on the same states, to no avail. the voters were completely educated as to the difference between them.
the electoral college appears to provide an advantage to the candidate with less cash and a better message. It seems counter-intuitive, but given the presence of citizens united, the current system is actually more democratic. take the big money out of elections, then bag the electoral college. until then, the electoral college evens the playing field.
Before changing the electoral college, first change the voting system to be national:
1. Federal elections from Federal voter registration rolls
2. Federal standards for voter registration and requirements
3. Federal elections run using uniform national voting systems and ballots
If the voting for president by popular vote is determined by the States, the southern States will suppress the votes on the basis that electing whites to Congress is more important than the presidency, and the blue States like California and New England will get everyone to the polls to run up 40 million extra votes for a Democratic president when the break down is 51% R in red states and 51% D in blue states, but the percentage voting in blue states is twice as high.
IMO, it’s still a stupid idea. The electoral college is a compromise that goes right back to the start of our nation. As a citizen of a sparsely populated state, to have true equality in the republic – to be totally fair – it would be better for us to go to a 1 state – 1 vote system for electing president. That way the president better represents in equal measure each state in the union. History indicates that the debate went back and forth like this between interests of various populations for quite some time while sorting all of it out. The idea of a national popular vote was even proposed at the time, and ultimately rejected.
By the structure that turned us into a nation, we are a republic of states that come together to select a president. It’s not like a high-school selecting homecoming king/queen. There is no grand injustice when a candidate who “wins” the popular national vote loses the presidency – regardless what party they are in – it’s just an occasional quirk of mathematics.
If we want to change the fabric of compromises that hold our union together, that’s completely a valid discussion. It is just abjectly lame to have such a discussion – to justify it – in terms of carving up a binary electoral advantage between the major parties. Doubly so when impetus seems largely derived from an inability to move past the election of 2000.
Please, answer this riddle, Jon.
There was a real turnout oddity in this election, when compared with 2008
turnout #s in 2008 prexy = 130 milion
turnout in 2012 = 120 million
In California, 13 million voted in 2008
9 million in 2012
there were 4 million fewer voters to the polls, really? Yes.
Obama vote in 20008 was 69 million vs.
61.5 million in 2012
goopers vote
2008 = 60 million for McC
2012 -= 58.5 million for Rmoney
where did they all go?
OB turnout machine is being touted for turning out 8 million fewer voters?
The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).
Every vote, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in presidential elections. No more distorting and divisive red and blue state maps. There would no longer be a handful of ‘battleground’ states where voters and policies are more important than those of the voters in 80% of the states that now are just ‘spectators’ and ignored after the conventions.
When the bill is enacted by states with a majority of the electoral votes– enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538), all the electoral votes from the enacting states would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and DC.
The presidential election system that we have today was not designed, anticipated, or favored by the Founding Fathers but, instead, is the product of decades of evolutionary change precipitated by the emergence of political parties and enactment by 48 states of winner-take-all laws, not mentioned, much less endorsed, in the Constitution.
The bill uses the power given to each state by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution to change how they award their electoral votes for President. Historically, virtually all of the major changes in the method of electing the President, including ending the requirement that only men who owned substantial property could vote and 48 current state-by-state winner-take-all laws, have come about by state legislative action.
In Gallup polls since 1944, only about 20% of the public has supported the current system of awarding all of a state’s electoral votes to the presidential candidate who receives the most votes in each separate state (with about 70% opposed and about 10% undecided). Support for a national popular vote is strong among Republicans, Democrats, and Independent voters, as well as every demographic group in virtually every state surveyed in recent polls in recent closely divided Battleground states: CO – 68%, FL – 78%, IA 75%, MI – 73%, MO – 70%, NH – 69%, NV – 72%, NM– 76%, NC – 74%, OH – 70%, PA – 78%, VA – 74%, and WI – 71%; in Small states (3 to 5 electoral votes): AK – 70%, DC – 76%, DE – 75%, ID – 77%, ME – 77%, MT – 72%, NE 74%, NH – 69%, NV – 72%, NM – 76%, OK – 81%, RI – 74%, SD – 71%, UT – 70%, VT – 75%, WV – 81%, and WY – 69%; in Southern and Border states: AR – 80%, KY- 80%, MS – 77%, MO – 70%, NC – 74%, OK – 81%, SC – 71%, TN – 83%, VA – 74%, and WV – 81%; and in other states polled: AZ – 67%, CA – 70%, CT – 74%, MA – 73%, MN – 75%, NY – 79%, OR – 76%, and WA – 77%. Americans believe that the candidate who receives the most votes should win.
The bill has passed 31 state legislative chambers in 21 states. The bill has been enacted by 9 jurisdictions with 132 electoral votes – 49% of the 270 necessary to go into effect.
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How pathetic is it that what were the confederate states so quickly went to Rombo early in the evening? The electoral map was red all over until late into the night. What’s wrong with these people?
The red states in the south receive the greatest amount of federal $$$ while contributing the least $$$ to the federal government. These states also have the greatest to benefit under Obamacare. Clearly, changing the way we elect the Prez will not change the outcome in these states.
If it were football, we might make some headway. Howzabout being a black football player at Ole Miss with their rebel flag and yadda yadda. Maybe we have seen the end of the southern strategy and outcomes likewise will change.