Never Underestimate the Power of Math

Posted: November 6, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: 2012 elections, Live Blog | 93 Comments

I think we can safely call this one the voting revenge of the math nerds, women, rape victims, Hispanics, African Americans and all of us that shouted WE WILL NEVER GO BACK!!!

There are so many of these backwards guys going down that it’s hard to keep up with them

We’ve got …

Senator Elizabeth Warren

Senator Tammy Baldwin

and many, many others …

This is absolutely a mandate.

The country has rejected Right Wing, PLUTOCRATIC, and THEOCRATIC RULE.

Charles P. Pierce ‏@ESQPolitics
I think tonight would be a pretty good night to have a few coldies with John Boehner. #elections2012, #igotminejack
Ellie Smeal ‏@elliesmeal<
Feminist Lois Frankel, the founding president of West Palm Beach NOW many years ago, just won election to Congress in Florida District 22.
Kate Sheppard ‏@kate_sheppard
Richard “God’s Will” Mourdock Won’t Be a Senatorhttp://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012/11/indiana-senate-donnelly-mourdock …

and I’m waiting for Pat Robertson to be called back home to his own special HELL REALM!!!

oh, and CLAIRE McCaskill just retained her seat!!! MISSOURI: McCaskill 53% Akin 41% (12% reporting) [CNN]

 

Many Happy Returns of the Day!!!

Posted: November 6, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: 2012 elections, Live Blog | Tags: , , | 124 Comments


There are long lines in states and precincts that are likely to vote Democrat.  The swing states are still too close to call and people are still standing in line.  Hang in there Swing State Heroes!!!  Racine Wisconsin–rust belt area of the state–has run out of Ballots.  The turn out in people threatened by a Romney/Ryan ascendancy have really TURNED OUT!!!

Good Evening !! 

The polls in more swing states are closing while all of the swing states in the rest of the country are still hanging like a chad in the Florida 2000 presidential election.

Meanwhile, we have some things we know.  First, we have some new Senators.  Here’s three things you should know about Senator-to-be Murphy from Connecticut.

1. He is a strong LGBT advocate
2. He is a Supreme Court watchdog
3. He supports filibuster reform

and Bill O’Reilly is upset.

On Fox News tonight, Bill O’Reilly lamented that the country’s changing demographics are helping the Obama campaign, who is popular among Americans who “want stuff” — like African-Americans, Hispanics, and women:

 O’REILLY: President Obama, he knows it and he ran on it….Twenty years ago, President Obama would have been roundly defeated by establishment candidate like Mitt Romney. The white establishment is now the minority. And the voters, many of them, feel that the economic system is stacked against them and they want stuff. You are going to see Hispanics vote for President Obama, overwhelming for President Obama. And women will probably break President Obama’s way. People feel that they are entitled to things and which candidate, between the two, is going to give them things?

Here’s some information on the new independent Senator from Maine Angus King.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in ads against King this cycle, but it is Rove’s Crossroads GPS that has had the most high-profile presence on the airwaves in Maine, pushing an anti-King spot that comes packaged with a kind of slickness that invariably leaves Mainers shaking their heads in a quiet kind of disgust:

So more, polls are closing and we still don’t have firm answers but the trends are good.  More young people, more blacks, and more Hispanics voting than expected.

Here’s CNN’s list of Top issues for Voters.

The early exit poll results show the economy is the number one issue on voters’ minds. Sixty percent called it the most important issue. Health care is a distant second at 17%. It’s followed by the deficit at 17% and foreign policy at 4%.

Twenty-four percent of the voters in this exit poll say their family’s financial situation is better today than it was four years ago. Thirty-four percent say it’s worse today while 41% say their financial situation is the same.

As for what today’s voters are looking for in a candidate, 29% want someone who has a vision for the future and a nearly identical number, 28%, want someone who shares their values. Twenty percent say the top quality they were looking for is whether a candidate cares about people like them, while 19% want a strong leader.

The exit polls provide a window into voters’ thoughts in some of the mostly-closely watched states of Florida, Virginia, Ohio and New Hampshire.

Early exit poll results from Florida indicate 67% of today’s voters are white, 16% are Hispanic, 13% are black and 1% are Asian. Forty-nine percent of today’s Florida voters say President Obama would better handle Medicare while 47% say Romney. Twenty percent of Florida’s voters –one in five– waited until late in the campaign to decide which presidential candidate to support, while 78% say they made up their minds before October 20th.

In Virginia, early exit polls show 21% of today’s voters identify themselves as white evangelicals or born-again Christians, while 79% say they are not. Virginia voters are split down the middle in their opinion of both presidential candidates. Fifty percent say they have a favorable opinion of President Obama while 49% view him unfavorably. Forty-eight percent say they have a favorable opinion of Mitt Romney while 50% view him unfavorably.

Count the Votes: Live Blog

Posted: November 6, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: 2012 elections, open thread | Tags: , , | 59 Comments

Good Evening!!

I just returned from voting with the rest of the Ninth Ward of New Orleans in our little 1920s era fire station.  I love my polling place. They move one of the big fire engines to set up the 4 booths.  All of my poll workers are nice little church ladies with a strong memory of Jim Crow and the Civil Rights era.  We’re always a nice usual mix of an inner city, working class neighborhood folks with lots of young creative types and gay folks.  We’re the kind’ve people that Romney considers to be the 47% worth his contempt and I can guarantee he probably got very few votes here. Obama and Jill Stein topped the ballots here. Romney came next with about 14 names I didn’t recognize following him.  Johnson was way at the bottom.

All eyes are on the swing states tonight as voting continues.   These are the swing states along with their associated number of electoral vote:

Colorado 9 , Florida 29, Iowa 6, Nevada 6,New Hampshire 4, North Carolina 15, Ohio 18, Virginia 13, Wisconsin 10.

Virginia will be the first state to watch.  There is also an important senate seat there where former Governor Tim Kaine is facing former Governor McCawCaw .  We are also following the MA senate race were Senator Misogyny will helpfully lose his seat to Elizabeth Warren. It will be the first of Four Romney Home states that will go Obama.  A fifth Romney Home state–New Hampshire–is likely to go for Obama since a lot of Republicans up there are of the libertarian stripe and my go for Johnson. North Carolina is also sitting in the group of states.  If Virginia and North Carolina come in for Obama, we can all go to bed early or switch to watching a movie.

Who knows what’s going to happen in Florida?  We’re already getting reports of shenanigans. We’ve got at least two bloggers on the ground there so maybe they’ll help us out!

Coming on the heels of those states will be the big prizes of swing states Ohio, Wisconsin, and the little state that drives us nuts every primary seasons–Iowa.

My bet is that if we get results early in any of the states we will have an early night.   Otherwise, we may have to way to Nevada and Colorado for some closure.

My research into forecasters who use polls to provide analytical forecast indicates an Obama win.  Pundits are still feeling Romney.  Hopefully, this is the last time any of us have to feel Romney EVER again.

So, here come the results from the first states.

Election Day Afternoon Update

Posted: November 6, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: 2012 elections, 2012 presidential campaign, U.S. Politics | Tags: , , , , , , | 39 Comments

Good Afternoon!!

Here’s a fresh thread while we wait for any bits of exit poll results to be leaked. Let us know if you’ve heard any!

I’ve got a few entertaining links for you in case you’re looking for something to read while obsessively waiting for the polls to close in Florida and Virginia (7PM Eastern).

Can you believe Mitt Romney is charging reporters who want to be inside his campaign headquarters tonight when the returns come in?

BOSTON — The campaign of Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney appears to be setting a precedent this election year in charging journalists and news organizations for any access to a presidential campaign headquarters on the night of the election.

Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who is locked in a tight race with Democratic President Barack Obama, will be holding his election night gathering at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, where access costs anywhere from $75 for a chair in the ballroom to $1,020 for permission to use the media filing center. Broadcast news organizations will be paying up to $6,500 for workspace.

Obama’s campaign party will be held at McCormick Place, in Chicago, and although his campaign is charging for premiums, credentialed reporters are granted access, which includes a workstation, electrical power and a wireless Internet connection, at no cost.

Romney is ending his historically awful campaign as gracelessly as he ran it for the past year.

But Romney’s money men will be treated like kings tonight.

BOSTON, MASS. —Mitt Romney isn’t going to forget the folks who picked up the tab for his billion-dollar run for the White House tonight.
Roughly 2,000 mega donors and bundlers are flocking to Beantown on Election Day for one last get together —which includes some special perks — according to a source on the ground familiar with the finance teams efforts.

Some of Romney’s biggest supporters, including New York Jets owner Woody Johnson; Texan mega donors L.E. Simmons and Ray Washburn; Jack Gerard, president of the American Petroleum Institute; Bobbie Kilberg, head of the Northern Virginia Technology Council; among others are expected to attend. Nevada gambling magnate Sheldon Adelson may also make an appearance, according to the source….

The festivities kick off with a dinner for the Romney Victory Council at the Westin Boston Waterfront Hotel, just a few short steps from the convention center where Romney’s slated to speak later in the evening. The group, dubbed informally as the “Council of 100,”are those that have raised significant amounts of money and includes many of Romney’s state chair network.

Unlike the press, the mega donors will watch the festivities in style.

Following the dinner, the finance team has organized two massive rooms in the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center for election night watch parties, one for the victory council and another for the national finance committee members. The finance committee room will include the campaign’s high-end donors of the founding members and partners as well as the bundlers that hit their marks in the“Stars” and “Stripes” programs.

May they all end up crying in their champagne.

Even though Romney will lose badly in Massachusetts, voters are flocking to the polls for the Senate race between Elizabeth Warren and Scott Brown.

Lines crawled down hallways of schools, outside firehouses and community centers around Cambridge, Somerville and Braintree just outside Boston.

At the end of the most expensive senate race in Massachusetts history, voters cast their choice as one for the decidedly progressive politics of Warren or the sense of moderation they felt that Brown–who shocked the nation when he won Kennedy’s seat in 2009–had brought to the Senate.

A few more links:

Emptywheel has an interesting post about her day working in “voter protection” at an African American district in Michigan: On the Ground Turnout in MI Feels Like It Did in 2008

At another Michigan polling place: Southfield Twp. voter appears to die, then asks ‘Did I vote?’

TPM: Ohio Viewers Hit By Anti-Obama TV ‘Special’ On Election Eve

The Cleveland Leader reports that Sherrod Brown’s opponent, Josh Mandel got a surprise from some family members yesterday: Josh Mandel’s In-Laws Call Him Out on Anti-Gay Stance in Newspaper Ad

In Franklin County, Ohio Tea Party “observers” from “True the Vote” were “barred from Franklin County polling places.”

What are you hearing in your neck of the woods?

Election Day Mid-Morning Open Thread: Polls

Posted: November 6, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: 2012 elections, 2012 presidential campaign, Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, open thread, U.S. Politics | Tags: , , , , , , | 74 Comments

There are good signs for President Obama in the latest national polls, and among the poll aggregators. Two of the most recent national polls show Obama at 50% and leading by 3 percentage points.

The final Pew Poll from Nov. 4 had Obama at 50% and Romney at 47% nationally, and The WSJ/ABC News Poll found the same result yesterday.

At HuffPo, Mark Blumenthal has the latest aggregated results from Pollster showing a likely Obama win. Here are the latest national polls.

And the latest Ohio polls.

You’ll find lots more info and charts at the HuffPo link.

Nate Silver put up a late post at 1:42 this morning: Late Poll Gains for Obama Leave Romney With Longer Odds

Mitt Romney has always had difficulty drawing a winning Electoral College hand. Even during his best period of polling, in the week or two after the first presidential debate in Denver, he never quite pulled ahead in the polling averages in Ohio and other states that would allow him to secure 270 electoral votes.

But the most recent set of polls suggest another problem for Mr. Romney, whose momentum in the polls stalled out in mid-October. Instead, it is President Obama who is making gains.

Among 12 national polls published on Monday, Mr. Obama led by an average of 1.6 percentage points. Perhaps more important is the trend in the surveys. On average, Mr. Obama gained 1.5 percentage points from the prior edition of the same polls, improving his standing in nine of the surveys while losing ground in just one.

Right now, Silver estimates Obama’s chances of winning at 91.6% and projects he’ll win 315 electoral votes. Romney’s chances of winning are only 8.4% and he is projected to win 223 electoral votes.

Finally, here’s Sam Wang’s latest post: Presidential prediction 2012 (Election Eve) He is also predicting an Obama win.

Have you voted yet? Were the polls crowded? If you’re in a swing state, or in touch with people in swing states, what are you hearing?

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