A State Of The Race Report For 9/19/2012: Romney Is Where He Needs To Be To Win The Race

A State Of The Race Report For 9/19/2012: Romney Is Where He Needs To Be To Win The Race

When is a tie not a tie in politics? When an almost universally known incumbent is tied with his challenger at about 46% with a mere 48 days before the election. Why is that not a tie? Because it means that roughly 8% of the electorate is familiar with Barack Obama, isn’t sold on him, and is looking for an excuse to vote for the other guy.

When an incumbent survives situations like this, it’s usually because he has a huge money advantage or alternately, his opponent is so extreme/flaky that voters consider him to be unacceptable. In this case, Mitt Romney should have rough parity or even a cash advantage over Obama down the stretch. Additionally, Romney doesn’t come across as flaky and he was a moderate Republican governor of a very blue state. The Democrats can spin things any way they like, but few people who aren’t diehard partisans are going to be convinced that a man who could be elected as governor of a state like Massachusetts is some sort of raving extremist.

Now, if this is so, why is the mainstream media acting like Obama has this thing locked up? Well actually, the answer to that question is so obvious that there’s no need to even answer. Better question: Why are there so many polls showing Obama ahead by a large margin?

Simple: Most of the pollsters are, for reasons none of them seem to be able to explain, oversampling Democrats. There is absolutely, unconditionally, no reason to think that the turnout model will look like it did in 2008 when Democrats had a seven point advantage over Republicans at the polls. I haven’t even seen a serious effort made to explain why the turnout would look as it did in 2008. When you start looking at the two big league pollsters that aren’t giving Obama a huge edge that can’t possibly materialize in 2012 (Rasmussen & Gallup), you find that they see the race almost exactly the same way.

Rasmussen Tracking 9/15 – 9/17 1500 LV 3.0 45 47 Romney +2
Gallup Tracking 9/11 – 9/17 3050 RV 2.0 47 46 Obama +1

Keep in mind that Gallup is still using registered voters, which is legitimate, but tends to slant the numbers by 2-4 points toward the Democrats. Look at those numbers, understand that challengers usually take about 75% of the independents still left on the board in a situation like this, and what you’ll see is that Romney is in pretty good shape.

That doesn’t mean the election is in the bag, nor does it mean Mitt’s running a particularly good campaign. It’s certainly not and he isn’t. On the other hand, Obama has been one of the worst Presidents in American history, he has run a terrible campaign, and there has been a lot of bad news for the country coming down the stretch. This whole campaign has been like watching Barney Frank take on Roger Ebert in a bare knuckles shoot fighting match. It has just been HORRIBLE to watch.

Still, don’t let the same people who declared that John Kerry had beaten George Bush in a walk because the exit polls looked so good manage to game you. There are no guarantees, which is why we have elections instead of declaring winners based on polls, but as of 9/19/2012, Mitt Romney is still in good shape.

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