Usually when meteorologists get it wrong, we all get it wrong together. Not so for political pollsters and analysts. There are wildly varying opinions available.
Nate Silver, ‘star’ of the Five Thirty Eight, Nate Silver’s Political Calculus blog at the NY Times shows President Obama as the prohibitive favorite.
As of Friday afternoon Silver’s number crunching says the president has an 80.9 chance of winning Tuesday with 303.4 electoral votes. 270 electoral votes are needed to win the election.
I know, you can’t get partial electoral votes, so I’m assuming this is the median of his projections.
Silver says President Obama does this will only 50.5% of the popular vote. When you figure Governor Romney might win Utah by a 3:1 margin and roll strong among other very red states you understand how it’s all possible.
On the other side are analysts like Dick Morris. A few days ago he wrote a piece for The Hill titled, “Opinion: Here comes the landslide.” He’s talking about a Romney landslide and the Republican’s retaking the Senate.
The most likely outcome? Eight GOP takeaways and two giveaways for a net gain of six. A 53-47 Senate, just like we have now, only opposite.
Along with Frank Luntz, Morris appears on Fox News Channel. People on the left accuse them of letting partisanship affect their research. Of course folks on the right say the same thing about Nate Silver who has admitted he supports President Obama.
Here’s the deal. Wednesday morning Morris or Silver will be shown to be very wrong. Whomever that is should crawl into the fetal position and disappear.
I’m a math guy specifically because it’s so trustworthy. I hate it when people screw around with it for political purposes.