Indicators, statistics, and the UK election of 1992: Why President Obama WILL be re-elected.

Last edited Thu Oct 25, 2012, 06:08 PM - Edit history (1)

It's over; change is coming, and the incumbents are leaving.

At least, that's what the received wisdom told the people of the United Kingdom back in 1992.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_general_election,_1992

Didn't quite turn out that way. The first sign was the BBC's projection, based on the day's exit polling. A hung parliament with the Conservatives forming the largest party, not the slender overall majority for Labour that the opinion polls had been shouting about for weeks. People didn't much like the incumbent party, but Labour still weren't trusted. For all the inroads that led people to say that they were going to return them to power after an absence of 13 years, they just couldn't cross that box when the hour of judgment arrived.

In the end, the Conservative party, slated to finish behind Labour by a 1-3% ended up more than seven points ahead. Oh yeah, there were Labour gains, but in terms of the popular vote, they ended up 3.6% better off than they did five years earlier, with the Tories' share of the vote declining by a mere 0.3%. It is worth nothing that 1992 saw the largest turnout in 18 years, and that percentage - 77.67 - hasn't been beaten since. Labour's popular vote gains were offset by the Tories' own. Incredibly, the small majority that John Major's party gained in that election was won with the largest total vote in British electoral history; Tony Blair & Labour's 1997 landslide was achieved with around 450,000 fewer votes; the precipitous drop in Conservative support was what turned it into a complete blow-out.

Are we seeing a precipitous drop in President Obama's support so far?

Now, the fact that there's little room for smaller parties in America means that popular vote gains for Romney would eat into President Obama's tally much more significantly. That's a given. With that said, let's take a (pretty unscientific) look at the latest early vote statistics we have at our disposal from North Carolina: President Obama is way up on 2008, the GOP even more so; they've gained ground, and Obama's lead is down by 3.1% on its 2008 level. Now, obviously that doesn't translate to 3.1% of the total vote - Obama took 55.2% of early voters in 2008, yet only won the state by 0.32%.

What is obvious to me is that yes, the GOP are really foaming at the mouth this cycle, but the apparent drop in enthusiasm among the President's supporters isn't showing itself in any of the figures seen to date. His numbers are extremely healthy, but living for the best part of four years under an imagined caricature of Barack Obama has really gotten the GOP base's adrenaline pumping. They're ready, but even in a conservative leaning state like North Carolina, they've shaved 3.1% of the early vote away from the President. In the event of a wave, this place shouldn't even be close; man, NC should be blanketed in red, but evidently it's not.

Let's be generous to our Republican friends and say that a 3.1% drop in the President's early vote advantage somehow portends a 3% nationwide drop in his overall support - Not early voting, but the entire thing. Let's be even more charitable and give the entire 3% to Mitt Romney; we're not even going to consider syphoning 0.5% to Gary Johnson courtesy of disgruntled Ron Paul supporters and conservative leaning folks who just cannot abide the GOP's retro social policy.

Let's do that, and we'll find President Obama on 49.9% and Mitt Romney 48.7%. It's a close run thing! Closer than Bush - Kerry! But there's just about no way that Romney wins the electoral college with that. Obama hasn't fallen off the precipice.

As a result, it's four more years of progress, four more years for the Republican party to finally try to get its act together and shake off just some of extremism. Let's face it, they'll have to do that if President Obama wins, because they don't have a Black Kenyan Socialist Muslim Fascist Baby Killer to get in a tizzy about next time.

In closing, I'd like you to consider, if you will, some of the circumstantial evidence. We have the frivolous; 7-Eleven's cup vote showing a big Obama victory (59-41) and this was a better indicator of the final vote tally than the majority of the actual polls during the last two election cycles.

We've had Obama's lead diminished in the Scholastic vote, 51-45 vs 55-39 in '08, yet expanding hugely in the Nickelodeon equivalent, from 51-49 to 65-35.

We have Halloween mask sales suggesting an Obama victory.

We have Allan Lichtman and his venerable "Keys to the White House" steadfast in the belief that the President will be returned for a second term.

We have the 'Misery Index' on side, with a 9-3 record over the last 12 elections.

We have Sam Wang making Obama a 9-1 favorite and Nate Silver also very confident that the President will cross 270. How about DeSart & Holbrook, who came within 0.5 & 0.4% of the popular vote margin in 2004 and 2008 respectively? As of today, their model has the President's chance of re-election at 86.34%.

We remember that George Bush led almost all of polls as the day of election 2000 rolled around.

We have Mitt Romney, a man supposedly so confident of winning, sweating, mumbling and at times looking close to tears during the final debate. All while sporting what looked awfully like an Ohio state tie. This is a man whose camp are apparently giddy? Remember Karl Rove yelling to all and sundry that Bush was on course for 320 EVs in 2000, sending his candidate to campaign in California?

Labour projected giddiness in 1992. They held this rally in the week leading up to election day.

In the end, it turned out that winning that election was just too much work. Just not enough people willing to give you their trust when it came to the crunch. Trust.

You might wonder if there's someone in this race who has had problems getting people to trust him.

(I would like to state that this is a slightly modified version of a thread I originally posted in General Discussion; I was advised that it might be more pertinent here - hope that kind of thing isn't taboo