Not only that, but Pennsylvania is now polling at 50 Obama, and 39 Romney. One less swing state for Romney to pick up now. The electoral college is going more strongly for Obama than the national polls.
Barack Obama won Pennsylvania, in 2008, by a margin of D+10.31. Supposing, for a brief exercise, he takes Pa. by 11 points: that would mean he's winning this election by more than the so-close margin, nationally, than what these pollsters have been indicating.
By the way: Pa. isn't a swing state (which implies it can be won over by either side). It's a base state for the Democrats. It is bluer than how the country votes (the points by which it can vary, say, between +3 with Obama and +5 with John Kerry).
There was a belief for a month or so, that this race could end with Obama not winning the popular vote, but taking it through the Electoral College. Now it's beginning to look like Obama will sweep Romney in both.
Problem is that Mitt Romney hasn't shifted the John McCain-held states far enough for this scenario. If he were to unseat Obama, all McCain-carried states would naturally be there … but on average a good 8 or 10 points redder is how all states would shift. That maybe one or two states would deviate. Obama won the popular vote, in 2008, by D+7.26. So, 8 points would deliver the popular vote to Romney by about R+0.75.
Romney, if he were win over the popular vote along with the Electoral College, would have to carry core Republican states similar to George W. Bush's two elections. For example, in the Dakotas, he'd have to nab 60 percent of the statewide vote, win them by a minimal margin of R+21, and then win Texas by over R+20, get a flip in North Carolina by around R+10 and, likewise, Indiana would have to be well past R+10 (Bush won it in 2004 by R+20.68). In Election 2008, Obama won pickups in Ind. (D+1.03) and N.C. (D+0.33). McCain carried Texas (R+11.76), just over 10 points, while he was just under that amount in North Dakota (R+8.65) and South Dakota (R+8.41).
If we were to have a split (Electoral College for Obama; U.S. Popular Vote for Romney), Obama would barely pull across the 270. He would start off with 359 (reallocated from his 2008-winning score of 365) and lose: Ind. (11), Nebraska #02 (1), N.C. (15), Florida (29), and Ohio (18). And then we'd see a split in Virginia (13) and Colorado (9). The two have had margin spreads from each other closely connected since 1996 that never exceed 3.53 (from 2004, when Bush won Va. by R+8.20 and Colo. by R+4.67). So, Va., which flipped and carried in 2008 for Obama by D+6.30 (while Colo. was a pickup by D+8.95), would fall first. You add Va. to the mix, and that draws down Obama to a bare win of 272 electoral votes.
Do
I buy into the feasibility of it? No.
It won't be a landslide, but it will take out some GOP members in congress who thought they were safe.
It
should be a landslide of winning the U.S. Popular Vote by a minimum of D+10. President Obama won Election 2008, over McCain, by D+7.26. Every president, elected to two full terms, but Woodrow Wilson had an increase with their electoral-vote count. (Wilson went from 435, in 1912, to 277, in 1916.) It's actually a typical pattern. In 1996 and 2004, respectively, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush gained 3 percentage points in their national margins for a second full term. Ronald Reagan gained nearly 8.5. Richard Nixon, facing the non-competitive George McGovern, gained close to 22.5 points. Dwight Eisenhower increased by just over 4.5.
