Today I filled out my predictions for the 2012 presidential election using CNN’s electoral map, and I’m predicting a stalemate. That’s right — a stalemate.
Source: CNN
I predict that Romney wins Nevada, Virginia, Colorado, and Florida, while Obama takes Ohio, Wisconsin, and New Hampshire. This scenario leads to both candidates garnering 269 electoral votes.
Source: CNN
Unfortunately, this potential outcome is not the only scenario that could result in a tie. If Romney wins Nevada, Ohio, Florida, Iowa, and New Hampshire, and Obama locks up Virginia, Colorado, and Wisconsin, then the election would result in another electoral tie.
Source: CNN
If the election results in an electoral tie, there would, of course, be numerous legal challenges as both sides strive to delegitimize the other’s claim to power. There would also likely be a concerted campaign to convince electors to change their votes.
If those efforts failed, the House would tally up the “electoral votes in a special session of the next Congress in January, and if no candidate reaches a majority, then each state’s delegation in the House casts a vote for president.”
How likely do you think a stalemate is?
Reflections of a Rational Republican 
ha ha ha ha haaaa …..surely you jest…..the constant hype and the “horse race” narative is bullshit. look at the data…… there will be a clear winner.
As a “clean energy crusader”…… how do you feel about being shit kicked off the table under a Romney presidency?……. there will be zero initiative to develope alternatives one could call clean. ….unless of course you are working for one of those “star wars” R & D facilities that sucked up some of the $ 274 BILLIION spent on SDI….. that jumped into the green scene in 2004…..Yeah some of them will always get some pork thrown at them under the radar ( as long as they don’t ruffle the oil industry)
If the Chameleon Mitt Romney wins…..alternatives will be squashed for another 4 years…..as
nonchalantly as Reagan yanked the solar panesl off the whitehouse in 1981. Your crusade will be as irrelevant as Sarah Palin’s PAC.
“As a “clean energy crusader”…… how do you feel about being shit kicked off the table under a Romney presidency?”
I’m willing to sacrifice there, if I can avoid another 4 years of economic stagnation under Obama. The man hasn’t even proposed an alternative policy, which leads me to believe that he’ll just pursue the same policies that haven’t been working. I agree that he did all the right things (Stimulus) up until March 2010. After that, he broke far left by ramming through a $1 trillion piece of legislation (Obamacare)that not a single Republican voted for. Obamacare effectively increased the cost for companies to hire new employees (during that period the rate of job growth sharply decelerated). Obama also signed legislation which tightens the monetary supply (by effectively raising reserve requirements on banks) at the same time that the Fed has been desperately trying to loosen monetary supply. The reason monetary stimulus as been less effective is that Dodd-Frank has counteracted its effects. But this president just doesn’t get it. He continues to yammer on about fair share nonsense. The only way out of this mess is through economic growth, not more redistributive policies.
I don’t think there’s much evidence, nor reason to think that Nevada will go for Romney: very, very large Hispanic population there, and the Republicans have, to their detriment, essentially turned off the majority of Hispanic voters with the xenophobic rhetoric that plays well to their primarily (Southern) white base. My prediction is IA, NV, WI, OH, NH all for Obama; FL, NC for Romney; VA and CO as genuine tossups, so I’ll split the difference and say CO for Obama and VA for Romney.
I also don’t think Romney will win the popular vote in this scenario, but it will indeed be quite close. Expect the Senate to be ~53 seats for Democrats (including King in ME), but House will stay in GOP hands (but may edge a little closer… 208 D, 228 R, perhaps?).
“I don’t think there’s much evidence, nor reason to think that Nevada will go for Romney: very, very large Hispanic population there, and the Republicans have, to their detriment, essentially turned off the majority of Hispanic voters with the xenophobic rhetoric that plays well to their primarily (Southern) white base.”
I’m not so sure. Nevadans tend to vote depending on the economic situation in their state. In 2008, it was a mess, and they voted by a high margin for Obama. Now it’s still a mess (not surprisingly). Moreover, there is a big Mormon base in Nevada, which I believe is highly energized in this election and my help tip the balance in Romney’s favor.
“I also don’t think Romney will win the popular vote in this scenario, but it will indeed be quite close. Expect the Senate to be ~53 seats for Democrats (including King in ME), but House will stay in GOP hands (but may edge a little closer… 208 D, 228 R, perhaps?).”
I think Romney’ll win the popular vote, primarily because there will be fewer voters in the Northeast as a result of Hurricane Sandy.
Nevada looks pretty safe for Obama, but anything could happen. Interesting if we end up with President Romney and Vice President Biden (should the House choose the President and the Senate the VP). I’m expecting Obama to win relatively easily but given how the race has been, we can’t know for sure until Tuesday!
Scott,
I forgot that the Senate elects the VP in a stalemate. Very interesting indeed!
It’s conceivable, I suppose, that the election could end in a tie.
It ranks up there on my list of “Nightmare Political Scenarios” for the US, however. The political climate is poisonous enough as it is (as evidenced by the first reply to this post, frankly); an election without a clear-cut winner would just throw more venom into the mix.
Sometimes I wonder when the hyperbole & hysteria of the campaigns and the media started to infect the populace at large…
I’m not too worried about a stalemate. The last 4 years have been the nightmare for me. I just hope the nightmare ends soon.
….I would like to post this from the Houston Chronicle….it sums up the reality disconnect with conservatives today………….a post election take:
For weeks leading up to the election, conservative opinion leaders like Newt Gingrich, Michael Barone, George Will, and professional troll Dick Morris predicted that Mitt Romney would win the election in a blowout. Each dismissed virtually all of the available evidence pointing in the other direction for no reason other than it conflicted with the outcome they wanted.
Here’s Morris grinning from ear to ear as he explains to Greta Van Sustren how Romney would win a landslide with 325 electoral votes:
This wasn’t a matter of opinion and it wasn’t arguable. Virtually all of the polls — the evidence, the data — showed Obama leading. Could a case for a narrow Romney victory have been made? Absolutely, and it was made by a lot liberals, including me, who viewed the evidence as it was rather than as we wished it to be.
But since conservatives who live in the Fox News bubble couldn’t imagine that the rest of the nation didn’t share their utter hatred of President Obama and understand that pros like Morris were saying the election was all but over, they just couldn’t fathom that Obama might be reelected. The polls must just be more liberal propaganda ginned up by the leftist press to further deceive real patriots like themselves.
Morris in particular is easy to dismiss as a grifter and cynic who exploits Fox News rubes who want to be told what they want to hear rather than what’s actually going on in what the rest of the planet acknowledges as reality. And of course that’s exactly what he is.
But the problem with people like Morris and the networks that give him airtime is not just that they’re fools or liars, it’s that the conservative movement is now dominated by people who believe that kind of obvious nonsense without thinking. Just before the election, Twitter was flooded with Fox/Limbaugh/NewsMax/WND types laughing about what a certainty it was that Barack Obama was about retire early.
Nate Silver, whose model correctly predicted both the 2008 presidential election and the 2010 midterms? Just a liberal hack in the tank for Obama. Companies like Public Policy Polling which consistently showed Obama ahead in swing states? It sometimes does polling for DailyKos and therefore must be untrustworthy.
A Fordham University study released today shows that PPP and DailyKos/SEIU/PPP were the numbers one and two most accurate polling organizations this cycle. Conservative comfort blanket Rasmussen was 24th out of 28.
After the first presidential debate, liberals freaked out, and rightly so. Obama was horrible. When he indisputably won the following two, conservatives refused to acknowledge Romney’s loss, even when polls showed that most people agreed that Romney had lost.
This is a major difference between the modern liberal and conservative movements. Liberals are willing to take reality as it is, not as we wish it to be. The entire country would be better off if conservatives would join us here on Earth.
http://blog.chron.com/partisangridlock/2012/11/conservatives-vs-reality/
Its awful quiet these days …..here, and out in punditry land. I am surprised there has not been a response here at ROARR about the thrashing that the GOP took last week.
Wasn’t there an addage in one of the classic crime movies of the past ….used by the drug kingpin about not doing your own product? ……for that is exactly what has happened to many Republicans lately…… they believed their own bullshit. They made it up…….spread it around, and swallowed it whole…..and it became the truth to them. Its been a problem for years now…………create your own reality ignore facts and data…………tell each other what you want to hear…….. hell, go ahead and make shit up if you have to…… Create a false narrative about the president …….despite the facts.
I hope the party shakes loose some of thew wingnuts who have brought them down.
Jeff,
My stalemate prediction was obviously wrong. The reason is obvious why. I didn’t spend any time doing a state-by-state analysis, which is my fault. I should have stuck to my prediction at the beginning of the year, which was an Obama victory.
I think this election is the last chance Republicans had to win it. Demographics dictate destiny, and destiny is no longer on the side of the Republican Party. As the stock market illustrated the day after the election, the market has no confidence in Mr. Obama, nor does it have any confidence in a Republican House. At best, the economy will limp along at sub-2% GDP growth. At worst, we will to go into recession next year because of the fiscal cliff. There is simply no good reason for businesses to hire in this environment.
I will probably be blogging a bit less. There’s no reason to blog more. People like me no longer have a seat at the table.