Numbers Begin To Add Up

After at least six agonising weeks, it appears that the Obama Presidential campaign has again started finding some traction among the voters, especially in the key Battleground States.

After lingering at an average lead of 1.1 per cent nationally in the weeks leading to Republican and Democratic National Convention (RNC and DNC), President Obama appears to have widened the lead to an average of 3.1 per cent. The latest poll wrap also indicates that Obama has created a lead in as many as eight out of the nine Swing States.

This also brings the focus back on the Swing States, that have remained crucial in elections over the past three decades as other states have shown solidifying support for either Republican or Democrat candidates irrespective of who is fighting. This write-up is basically a primer that will try in brief to explain to the readers how the US presidential election works and how the current survey data fits into that matrix.

It is important here to understand that the presidential elections in the US is not a direct election, as is the norm in most other countries. It is an indirect election based on an electoral college system.

Every state in the US has electors who constitute the electoral college. The number of electors is based on the number of senators and US representatives that each state has. Since every state has two senators, it gets two electors automatically. The number of US representatives differ and is based on population. So states with bigger populations automatically get more electors. A total of 538 electors form the electoral college – 535 from the 50 states and three from Washington DC – and hence 270 becomes the magic number.

So, while the votes of the people is important, at the end of the day, it is the electors who select the president. Out of the 50 states, 48 follow the “winner takes all” system – the candidate getting the maximum votes also gets all the electoral votes. For example,  Texas has 38 electoral votes. So when Republican candidates win Texas, they get all the 38 votes. This essentially means that a Democrat voter in Texas can keep voting all his life but his vote basically does not count. However, Maine and Nebraska follow the "district system" and electoral votes are split.

Thanks to this peculiar system, it has so happened in the past that despite winning the popular vote, a candidate has lost the election because of too few electoral votes, most notably in the disputed 2000 elections, when Bush Junior defeated Al Gore through the controversial Florida electoral votes. Earlier too, similar situations have emerged in as many as three elections.

Therefore, the candidates do not focus on states where they are sure of either winning or losing convincingly. They shift their focus on states where the support for any party has not solidified and results remain unpredictable. These are called Swing or Battleground States.

Over the century, the composition of Swing States has swung both ways – many of them became either Democrat and Republican leaning or solidly in favour of the respective parties.

11 states, namely Alaska, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota,   Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah, Virginia and Wyoming, have invariably supported Republicans in the last 50 years. Similarly, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota and New York have remained solid Democrats over the same time.

Then there are a couple of dozen states that are in the process of solidifying their support and are predictable. That leaves us with Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin; as the unofficial Swing States this time around.

Apart from North Carolina, the only state where Romney leads , and  that pretty convincingly,  Obama leads in all the other 11 states. According to the Romney team's own calculations, they need to win at least Ohio's 18 electoral votes to remain in serious contention. However, President Obama seems to have taken a 4.2 per cent lead there, which is higher than even the national average. In fact, it is only in Florida, Iowa and Virginia that Obama has a lead of less that 1.5 per cent.

If we consider the last four elections, a trend appears to be emerging in Michigan, New Mexico and Pennsylvania which have started to lean solidly towards Democrat candidates. For all practical purposes, they can now be called as Democrat leaning states and not Battleground States.

Team Romney will now be desparate to score some brownie points on the October 3 TV debate. While it will not affect the voters who have already made their mind up, it is definitely going to affect indecisive voters, who are dwindling in numbers as the poll day approaches. However, analysts believe that even if Romney outsmarts Obama in debate, a long shot anyway, it will not be enough to negate the latter’s lead in Ohio, Colorado, Nevada or for that matter Florida. And that is where Romney is going to face serious problems. 

The over all bump in ratings that Obama has received is also because of an over all increase in his approval ratings post DNC. Gallup's last week's poll suggests that Obama commands a 52 per cent approval rating, the highest approval rating reported since May 2011, just after the killing of Osama bin Laden. It is also the first time in as many months that the approval rating has crossed 50 per cent.  To put it in perspective, it is a massive jump of seven per cent over the data collected just a fortnight ago and the weeks before that.

Therefore, taking the latest numbers into account, Mitt Romney's chances come election day do not look all that promising. 

saurabh.shahi@thesundayindian.com