Popular Vote
OBAMA ROMNEY
TOTAL 61,907,639 58,648,640
PERCENT 50.5% 47.9%


Plenty of people here (myself included) have disdained the Electoral College as unrepresentative. I'm not switching my position just because it's easier to claim a landslide victory.

notwithstanding the millions who did vote in places such as california, texas, new york, idaho, vermont, alabama, etc., there were millions as well who didn't bother to vote because they were told their vote didn't really matter because they live in a "safe" state.

so the popular vote numbers we have are actually representative not of the real popular vote, but of the popular vote from among those who chose to participate under the electoral vote system.

i would think vote totals for both sides from "safe" states would be noticeably higher in an actual popular vote contest.

while the electoral college results were significant, the popular vote was close - three effin' million and that is close?

the only thing that matters is President Obama feels he has a mandate. I don't think there is anything he can't or won't do to help us now that he has that mandate.

...creating that horse race narrative would work to the Democrat's advantage. I don't think there were many of us...despite the promising polls, that felt this election was a done deal or would turn out as it did. We felt confident but nervous...and the "close" narrative I think put a stronger push into the GOTV effort that was so crucial to Tuesday's big win.

Inversely the rushpublicans were certain the polls were "skewed"...that Willard was going to be lifted in some Chick Fil A wave of fundies and wingnuts to victory. Looking at the freeper threads that have been posted here show that overconfidence. They...including Willard...believed the Dick Morris' (who I think did this to punk the gullible), turdblossom and el rushbo...and got a face full of reality last Tuesday night.

From one who was on the other side in 2004...last Tuesday's results were extremely satisfying and I'm still enjoying some delicious schadenfraude...

. . . hundreds of thousand votes in Cali and Arizona which means the Presidents pop. vote total will surely go up, especially with the California totals still to come.

For those of you that are pointing to the popular vote as proof of the election actually being closer than the EC showed I would offer the following point.

The Obama team is excellent at what they do and they won the game that they played.

If the game was to be dicided by the popular vote, then their strategy would have been different.

GOTV operations in Democratic strongholds would have been put to work to maximize votes everywhere. Instead those efforts were maximized in the places where they would make the most difference under the rules of the game.

Trying to look at the popular vote to prove a point is like trying to claim victory in a football game because you got the most passing yardage despite getting fewer points. It is simply not how the game is played.