6.16.2008

Popular Vote v Electoral Vote

This might be my favorite graph that we've done so far: a comparison of Barack Obama's popular and electoral vote totals across the first 1,000 simulations that we ran last night:



Several interesting things to point out:

1. The relationship between the popular vote and the electoral vote is approximately linear, except at the endpoints. As a rule of thumb, a gain of one percentage point in a Obama's popular vote share results in a gain of 25 electoral votes. This is also, you will note, a pretty steep slope. If Obama wins the election by 4 percentage points, he projects to win by approximately 100 electoral votes (319-219).

2. The regression line crosses the y-intercept at 269.3 electoral votes, which is almost exactly half of 538. That means that there does not appear to be any systematic advantage in the electoral vote math to one candidate or another, at least based on our present rendering of these numbers.

3. Where you do see a little bit of skew are those scenarios where one candidate wins by about 5-15 percentage points. In those cases, the winning candidate tends to win by more electoral votes than is predicted by the regression line. This is because an especially high number of states are within reach for one or another candidate. In contrast to 2004, when 16 states and the District of Columbia were decided by 20 or more points, very few are polling that way this year.

4. The range of possible outcomes given any specific value of the popular vote is about 80-100 electoral votes wide. For example, an Obama win by 5 percentage points could easily be associated with any number from about 290 electoral votes up to as many as 390, depending on how the individual states shake out. Likewise, for any given value of the electoral vote, the range of the popular vote margin is about 6 or 7 percentage points wide. What this means, among other things, is that it's virtually impossible for a candidate to win the electoral college while losing the popular vote by more than about 3 or 3.5 percentage points.

58 comments

Anonymous said...

Nice, so Obama stands to be very far ahead if current environment holds, I look forward to the landslide (26.13% chance)

Lets see if Rasmussen gives Obama a bounce in Virginia in their poll to be released at 5

Anonymous said...

Wait a minute, I don't think I agree with point 3. If the data points are below the regression line when McCain wins by 5-15%, then Obama is getting FEWER electoral votes relative to the popular vote support he is getting than at other points in the graph. This is the opposite of what is stated in point 3.

Nate said...

Oops, I think you're right @3:51. Let me fix.

Simeon said...

And the VA poll is out! (Rasmussen)

Obama 45 (44)
McCain 44 (47)

(May 8th results in parenthesis.)

Alex said...

This is all syncing up nicely now. RCP has the national poll average around Obama+3.5 right now, which your graph maps to about 300 EVs, right where your state-by-state projection is holding. Nice job!

obsessed said...

On the subject of Rasmussen, I've been following their Bush Approval ratings for years. They swear by their "strongly versus somewhat" methodology, which results in a nominally higher "approval" rating for Bush.

Nevertheless, it's down to 31%, but the figure I keep watching is "strongly disapprove". If that ever breaks 50% I'll consider it a tipping point, because I don't trust the "somewhat disapprove" gang to vote against McCain. This week, "strongly disapprove" reached a new record high: 49%.

Almost there!

Anonymous said...

New Ras Poll out for VA:

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/2008_presidential_election/virginia/election_2008_virginia_presidential_election

Obama 45% McCain 44%

Anonymous said...

VOTE MCCAIN!! OBAMA IS A MUSLIM!!!

Alex said...

Oy, well blogs are all about user interaction, but do you police trolls at all, Nate? Unless that's a rather inane stab at irony.

Anyways, Mr. Anonymous,
http://www.isbarackobamaamuslim.com

Stephen said...

VOTE OBAMA!! MCCAIN IS A QUAKER!!!!

Err, but anyway. Interesting to see that the Electoral College seems like it really does mostly mirror the popular vote, at least on average. I can't decide whether to view the accuracy of the approximation as better than I feared or worse than I hoped, though.

Jacky said...

Anonymous said...

VOTE MCCAIN!! OBAMA IS A MUSLIM!!!

---

thats the best you can do ?

lol

another brain dead human

Jack said...

VA is really looking good for OBAMA

justin said...

The best news for Obama in the latest Virginia poll is that almost all the movement has come from Independents, Obama has seen only an increase of 1 % among democrats from 75 to 76 which shows amazing growth potential he has in this state. He is 1 point ahead of McCain despite only getting 76 % of democrats! And the number of dems supporting Obama is only going to go up.

On a side note it looks like the new version was bang on... this poll supports the results of v2 of this site with Virginia moving from a slightly pink to pure toss-up. Here's hoping we get some new polls from Ohio and Pennsylvania soon.

Jack said...



Anonymous said...

More good news for McCain!!!!

http://tour.rustytrombone.com/aa/index.php

----

don't go to the site

its porn

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Stuart said...

One thing that's interesting about the new methodology is that in theory it ought to diminish the effect of any given new poll because an attempt has already been made, implicitly, to "guess" what that poll might say. Today's VA poll, for example, would likely have had more impact on the old model; now all it's doing is providing data to back up what the model is already guessing in the absence of data.

I miss the win percentage versus time graph, though. I think especially with the new methodology that would be a very useful way to get an impression of when something happened that really did represent a change in the race.

And did anyone mention "bring back the cartogram!" in this thread yet?

Andrew said...

Nate:

Does Missouri really belong in the "Highlands" (read: Appalachia) category along with TN, KY, AR, WV, and OK? Missouri doesn't seem to be demographically similar to those other states. I would think it would belong in the "North Central" along with Illinois and Iowa.

Anonymous said...

re: Stephen

Hey!! I'm a Quaker, and I'm offended by your implication that McCain is one of us! I'll have you know, we Quakers have a celebrated history in the Oval Office: uh, well, erm, Hoover and, sorta, Nixon.

Dammit, nevermind. :-)

Anonymous said...

I am a fan of this site and I am still getting used to the changes that were made a couple of days ago. I've read and reread the explanation of the changes and I think I understand it as well as some of the comments -- some of the deeper ones are beyond me. Sort of makes me feel bad for blowing off some of those stats classes when I got my poly sci degree 25 years ago...

Question, given your ability to profile each state and every CD, perhaps your map could have a special pop-up section for those two congressional districts in Nebraska that Obama may be competitive in and we could see if this current "rising tide" of national poll support is project to flip one or two of those districts?

Alex said...

Stuart:

Because the revamp shifted the win % so dramatically it's difficult to see how to put it back up there without looking weird (and without going all the way back and rerunning future-projections in the past, which seems a bit unnecessary). Plus, the super-tracker seems to track what I remember from the win% tracker pretty well.

Oh yeah. Bring back the cartogram!

David said...

I just found this blog and it's interesting. Perhaps the anonymous commenting feature could be disabled though...

such sweet thunder said...

This is because an especially high number of states are within reach for one or another candidate. In contrast to 2004, when 16 states and the District of Columbia were decided by 20 or more points, very few are polling that way this year.

This is an interesting point in and of itself. Could the fact that there are very few blowouts, as of right now, be actually a predicator of how much the numbers will eventually move: vis a vi, you now use months away from election as a factor in predicting how much the ultimate results will possibly move. Would it be better to use amount of blowouts instead of time as a gage for how likely the numbers are to move as we approach election day?

I have to imagine that there are going to be more blowouts, for both the Republicans and Democrats, as we move closer towards election day?

Juris said...

If you look closely, you'll see that the scatterplot takes a slightly S-like shape. This is a typical pattern where you have "plurality/majority winner take all" awarding of "seats" or "delegates" in a legislature (in this case "the electoral college"). A very sharp reward or punishment for being just a point or two or three under or over the 50% mark.

If you want to do another exercise, you can replicate this for the awarding of convention delegates in the GOP and Dem party primaries in 2008, to see the huge reward to the GOP candidates when they won the plurality and the much smaller reward to the Dem candidates because of their use of proportional representation (PR). (Or you can just compare 2008 with 2004, when all regular delegates were chosen using winner-take all).

As another suggestion, suppose in 2008 the Dems had awarded convention delegates using state-level PR only, and not awarded delegates (mostly) at the CD-level. How much would that have dampened or exaggerated the differences in the number of delegates earned by the candidates overall? (It certainly affected their ground game.)

Did the CD-level awards actually make the delegates/votes proportionality worse overall (because of lumpiness and rounding and thresholds in dividing the small number of delegates at the CD level, as opposed to being able to do a more truly proportional allocation if the delegates had been awarded only at the state level) -- or did this lumpiness tend to cancel out when the states are aggregated?

Anonymous said...

Obama Pollster Pimp O-P-P

what my homies r callin me

I can turn red states into blue

with 538 Regression Model version 2

polls show red for nevada & o-hi-O

when I crunch the numbers they turn for Mister O

they showin me love at CNN

wonderin where to find a corrupt statistician

got some new data linkin McCain to Dole

old white war hero losers sure to make Obama roll

Regression Model version 1 was no fun

It always showed than McCain had won

Those days are over for you and me

Now I'm Obama Pollster Pimp O-P-P

Anonymous said...

Can you show a ZOOM on your graph?

What's interesting to me is that Obama can lose the popular vote by 2%, and still win the 270.

Or he can win the popular vote by 2%, and not get to 270 and lose.

That's the interesting region of your graph.

Jivas said...

Andrew:

Nate has commented before that Missouri is perhaps the most demographically unique state in the country, and that it includes traits of the Highlands, North Central, and Prairie regions. I'm not sure of the quickest way to search for this discussion point within the blog, or if anyone else has a link handy, but the specific case of Missouri has been addressed.

Actually, the more I think about it, the discussion probably coincides with the date of the Missouri primary, if that helps you look.

Bob said...

Wow. Rare for the trolls to spend time on a rhyme scheme. Props to anon 6:09.

Also: Bring back the cartogram! :-)

Anonymous said...

I think that the fundemental flaw in the new changes to the regression are clearly shown here www.veqq.com/

Anonymous said...

Without even looking I imagine those flaws are huge. I wonder how much these wanderers get paid for posting links. 25 cents each, I imagine.

Bob said...

The link in 6:27 is porn spam.

Nate, I think you're so popular you need a community moderating system.

Jason K said...

"What this means, among other things, is that it's virtually impossible for a candidate to win the electoral college while losing the popular vote by more than about 3 or 3.5 percentage points."

This is of course all based upon your simulations, which are based upon polling, which are based upon their turn out model. If the turn out models remain true and turn out patters are essentially the same as in past elections then your statement above is correct.

In fact in most years I would expect the turn out models to be correct. The Electoral College has the effect of suppressing turn out in the blow out states, and increasing it in the swing states. In this way the system is some what self correcting, which makes it hard to have a huge disparity between popular vote and electoral vote. However in this election I can see that system breaking down. If you have African American turn out explode, it's likely to happen across the board. Which means the margin in Democratic blow out states will be even greater, and the margins in traditional republican blow out states will be narrower then ever.

That could result in a scenario where the increased turn out doesn't have a huge effect on the electoral college, for example if all those southern states get very close but don't actually flip, but would have a huge impact on the popular vote margin.

Josh Putnam said...

Congrats Nate! You've made the big time: porn spammers.

This is an awesome new graphic you've added. The interesting thing is that, yes, it looks linear when you exclude those endpoints. With them included though (and this augments what Juris stated above) the curve resembles the S-curve you typically see in a binary logit/probit model. In this case, what you have resembles a dichotomous variable for "Obama wins" where the tipping point is 270 electoral votes (instead of, say, 0.5). Anything beyond that and your vote choice is Obama, and below is for McCain. Interesting.

Several folks have mentioned "bring back the cartogram." I'm not a big fan of the cartogram, but we have sought to resize each state to match its electoral vote total proportionally in a template we're using for our electoral college analysis at Frontloading HQ. Granted the methodology behind it may be simplistic compared to what Nate has put together here, but it is an interesting hybrid map that deals with the "map is all red" issue but doesn't completely distort the map to get to correct it.

Now everyone can cross their fingers and hope that this isn't yet another link to porn. At least I'm using HTML tags. They don't seem to be that sophisticated yet.

Anonymous said...

I hear a lot of talk about the possibility of Obama winning the popular vote, but losing the electoral college, on the basis of high African-American turnout across the board (the scenario Jason K talks about above). I'm not so sure -- I think it's pretty unlikely that there'd be a huge surge in AA turnout that wouldn't affect Ohio, Florida, Virginia and Missouri -- all of which are states that are close enough/have a big enough AA population for that turnout issue to make a difference.
More likely, I'd think, might be a scenario where Obama does win the electoral college, but not by as big a margin as his popular vote win would suggest....
btw: what's up with the spellcheck in Firefox still not recognizing "Obama"?

MVRed.com said...

I find it very very funny that people on here think Barack Obama will blow out John McCain. I have no idea where they get this idea, his poll 'bounce' lasted about 1 week and it's back to a dead heat in many polls.

Barack Obama will not blow out John McCain because there will be perhaps million[s] of Clinton supporters that will back John McCain. Secondly we live in a world where many senior citizens are still racist, and they are the group that always goes out to vote.

Obama may win the popular vote, but the electoral college projections I have got this election coming down to Michigan-Ohio-Pennsylvania.

I expect Michigan to go to McCain, esp. if he picks Romney as his VP. I expect Pennyslvania to go to Obama by 3 points.
I expect Ohio to go 50/50 and separated by 50,000 votes.

Read more at my blog:
www.mvred.com

KQuark said...

Nice analysis. Here's a bit of analysis I was working on to correlate approval ratings of standing presidents to change in parties holding office. Doing a little analysis it is almost a certainty the Obama will be elected the next president.

Analyzing the elections since 1936 when the public was first polled for presidential approval ratings (ARs) EVERY election when a standing president or in some cases 2 presidents with an average approval rating of less than 50% had led to the opposite party winning the white house (0 out of 4 times).

In the same analysis if the standing president has an approval rating over 50% that does not guaranty that the same party wins back the white house. However in this case when the opposing party did win the white house the elections were incredibly close like in 2000, 1968 and 1960.

Change seems to be a major factor in elections particularly after 2 term presidents. Political parties have only returned parties back into power after two term presidencies in 2 out of 5 times.

Standing President(s) AR, Election winner and popular vote difference
2004 Bush 51%, Bush reelected 2.46%.
2000 Clinton 65%, Bush elected but Gore won popular vote 0.51%.
1996 Clinton 59%, Clinton reelected 8.51%.
1992* Bush 35%, Clinton elected 5.56%.
1988 Reagan 55%, Bush elected 7.72%.
1984 Reagan 57%, Reagan reelected by 18.21%.
1980* Carter 39%, Reagan elected 9.74%.
1976* Ford 55% but Nixon 24% (AVG 39.5%), Carter elected 2.06%.
1972 Nixon 63%, Nixon reelected 23.15%.
1968 LBJ 55%, Nixon elected 0.70%.
1964 JFK 66% and LBJ 75% (AVG 70.5%), LBJ elected 22.58%.
1960 Eisenhower 65%, JFK elected 0.17%.
1956 Eisenhower 75%, Eisenhower reelected 15.40%.
1952* Truman 38%, Eisenhower elected 10.85%.
1948 FDR 72% and Truman 55% (AVG 62.5%), Truman elected 4.48%.
1944 FDR 72%, FDR reelected 7.50%.
1940 FDR 64%, FDR reelected 9.96%.
1936 FDR 60%, FDR reelected 24.26%.

*Incumbent(s) average ARs less than 50%

.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Approval_rating

Newton123 said...

What's the explanation for the local peak around 10 EV in the electoral vote distribution chart? It surely can't correspond to reality - you don't get another peak that size until you get to around 150 EV.

On another issue, is there any chance of displaying your win prediction using the old methodology? I'm assuming the old and new will converge some in a week or two.

Anonymous said...

Gee from a much earlier post I thought rusty trombone was going to be McCains running mate!

Isabel Lugo said...

For what it's worth, Ben Schak claims that the electoral college gives Obama an advantage, based on simulation. He gives some reasonable-sounding arguments why this should be true), basically that McCain wins bigger in his safe states than Obama does in his.

He quotes it in terms of how the popular vote is split versus Obama's win probability, though, so it's hard to directly compare.

(Disclaimer: Schak is a friend of mine.)

Benjamin Schak said...

Hi Isabel, how's it going.

I also get 25 electoral votes per 1% popular vote, 25.237 to be more precise.

I disagree with Nate's assessment that the electoral college gives neither candidate an advantage. He says that his regression line crosses the y-axis at 269.3 electoral votes, which means that a 50/50 popular vote translates into about 269.3 electoral votes. Since Obama needs only 269 electoral votes to win the electoral college, this means that Obama wins the electoral college >50% of the time in a 50/50 election, probably somewhere near the 60% that I have estimated elsewhere.

VOR said...

Relevant to this point, see Nate's column of June 7, "How the Electoral College Hurts the GOP." (If URL runs off the edge, you can search for this column under the "electoral math" topic heading in the left column here.)
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/06/how-electoral-college-hurts-gop.html

cromartie said...

I expect Michigan to go to McCain, esp. if he picks Romney as his VP.

The Romney name means nothing in Michigan to anyone who wasn't alive in 1966. He didn't serve in Michigan. He did nothing in Michigan - except leave.

Next.

Anonymous said...

See the cartograms at
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/ ...maybe you could use?

Another Mike said...

Nate,

Another fascinating graphic! Sometimes we get too caught up in the battleground states and ignore the fact that even a marginal win by 3 or 4 points virtually guarantees an EV win.

OT opinions of one loyal reader:

1. Please show state projections pre-time adjustment and show the amount of the time adjustment for each state. It's fascinating to see how much the timing of when the prior polls were taken affect the projection and those with larger modifications may be deemed less reliable. Also, more transparency in how you arrive at your projections adds credibility.

2. Bring back the win tracker, but include a vertical line and explanation for the recent methodology change.

3. Get rid of the Dallas Cowboys blue star for DC on the state graphics.

4. I never cared for the cartogram. Good riddance to it!

Anonymous said...

The real issue is not how well Obama or McCain might do in the closely divided battleground states, but that we shouldn't have battleground states and spectator states in the first place. Every vote in every state should be politically relevant in a presidential election. And, every vote should be equal. We should have a national popular vote for President in which the White House goes to the candidate who gets the most popular votes in all 50 states.

The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC). The bill would take effect only when enacted, in identical form, by states possessing a majority of the electoral vote -- that is, enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538). When the bill comes into effect, all the electoral votes from those states would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).

The major shortcoming of the current system of electing the President is that presidential candidates have no reason to poll, visit, advertise, organize, campaign, or worry about the voter concerns in states where they are safely ahead or hopelessly behind. The reason for this is the winner-take-all rule which awards all of a state's electoral votes to the candidate who gets the most votes in each separate state. Because of this rule, candidates concentrate their attention on a handful of closely divided "battleground" states. Two-thirds of the visits and money are focused in just six states; 88% on 9 states, and 99% of the money goes to just 16 states. Two-thirds of the states and people are merely spectators to the presidential election.

Another shortcoming of the current system is that a candidate can win the Presidency without winning the most popular votes nationwide.

The National Popular Vote bill has been approved by 18 legislative chambers (one house in Colorado, Arkansas, Maine, North Carolina, Rhode Island, and Washington, and two houses in Maryland, Illinois, Hawaii, California, and Vermont). It has been enacted into law in Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, and Maryland. These states have 50 (19%) of the 270 electoral votes needed to bring this legislation into effect.

See http://www.NationalPopularVote.com

susan

Juris said...

I oppose the National Popular Vote idea for two very simple, but related reasons.

(1) The way we count votes, even the eligibility rules for voting, differ too much across states. But the effects of bad laws in one state have less impact on the overall result now than they would if a given state's popular vote had a greater impact on who wins the national-level election.

If the GOP and its laws (e.g., felony disenfranchisement and voter ID laws) and the actions of the Secretary of state in FL and OH, for example, succeeded in suppressing minority votes in their states -- as they did in 2000 and 2004 -- that's bad enough, but it only affected those two states. So the electoral college method keeps the corruption within state borders.

(2) How the votes are actually recorded and talleyed differs greatly from state to state, and having a "national popular vote" law isn't going to affect that as long as elections are run by state and local governments -- which would still be the case. Even the rules for determining when an automatic recount is required differ between states. And the rule for how absentee ballots are used, or even counted, differ from state to state. This opens up the possibility for further corruption.

Imagine if the "National Popular Vote" were high contested, say within 50,000 to 100,000 votes. Then what? We would demand a "national recount," not a state recount. And that would take forever and lead to a virtual civil war if some states felt that other states were deliberately miscounting or undercounting votes.

IMO, only when there is a uniform set of rules for voter eligibility and administration, and only when the method of casting and counting ballots is as reliable as it is in, say, Brazil (as opposed to, say, Russia), would I endorse a national count.

fang2415 said...

This National Popular Vote debate brings up a question that I would love to see some numbers on: would the popular vote be less likely to contradict the electoral vote if states chose electors proportionally?

If so, then states' adoption of proportional selection of electors could satisfy the basic criticism of the electoral college as being undemocratic, with several extra benefits:

* Every vote would count (at least within the proportion needed for an extra elector in each state -- much more than most votes count for now)
* Every state would be worth fighting for
* It still keeps the electoral college weighting so that states like Wyoming aren't totally ignored
* States still manage elections
* States can adopt the change one at a time, without waiting for critical mass
* It allows a state to "lock in" swing-state status, guaranteeing it will get permanent presidential attention

I've always been a little surprised that with all the advocacy about the electoral college's problems, this never gets mentioned as a solution. I guess the real question is whether it would solve the problem of contradictory popular/electoral outcomes.

Nate, you reckon you could run the chart above with the assumption of proportionally-assigned electors?

maxdaddy said...

Fang2415 is right that electoral college proportionality would help, but we'd still have a voter from Wyoming count more than a voter from California. In the last presidential election, each California electoral vote represented about 225,000 voters. Wyoming's total vote cast for president barely exceeded that number yet Wyoming gets 3 electoral votes--roughly one for every 80,000 voters. Unfortunately, given the way we amend our Constitution, it will be a long day before the small states give up this disproportionate power, whether they be red states or blue states.

fang2415 said...

maxdaddy, of course you're right about Wyoming being over-counted, but this is one of the fundamental ideas (and, IMO a good one) behind the electoral college, or, for that matter, Congress. The Constitution has a lot of these sort of checks to avoid a tyranny of the majority -- the worry is that if states with low populations don't receive a slight weighting in national affairs, they'll simply be ignored, for ever.

Under a proportional system, candidates would still spend most of their time in states with high population densities so that their ad buys etc. translate to more electoral votes. Wyoming's weight is only slight, and no more undemocratic than their right to a minimum of 2 senators and 1 representative. Three (actually, probably just one) truly up-for-grabs electoral votes might get them a tiny bit more presidential attention per capita than Californians would get. But if we have a national popular vote, no candidate will ever bother promising better schools to Wyomingites, or any to any other rural voters, for that matter. They'll just campaign in big cities.

Even for people who agree with your objection on a moral level, it would unfortunately open up a discussion of whether Wyoming truly matters, which in turn opens up a discussion of things like "should we have states" -- I'm not sure those questions would lead to very productive policy debates.

If you ask me, proportional electors is a gradual, moderate change that keeps most of these fundamental constitutional structures as they are, but would be massively more democratic than the current winner-takes-all system because it would ensure that every vote matters. (Assuming it works! Nate, I wonder if you'll read this far down the thread?...)

yohoho78 said...

maxdaddy -

The big problem with the Electoral College is not that it favors small states, but that it favors swing states. Sure, a WY voter has much better representation than a CA voter, but that fact is practically meaningless because in real life both states are taken for granted and both voters are totally ignored. Small states need to wake up and understand there's no advantage to being over-represented in a system where everybody knows how you're going to vote and so nobody pays attention to you.


fang2415 -

A couple big problems with proportionality:

* Increased chance of elections being thrown into Congress: if no candidate gets 270 electoral votes, Congress decides the outcome. With proportionality, this would happen whenever you have a strong third-party candidate (e.g. Perot) splitting the vote three ways.

* Difficulty of implementation: For states that aren't swing states, switching to proportionality gives an instant disadvantage to the party they usually support... e.g. if CA switches to proportionality, the Dems lose 20 electoral votes. And states that are swing states stand to lose a huge amount of power... e.g. if CO switches to proportionality, instead of all 9 electoral votes up for grabs, it would have only 1, because 4 would be solid D and 4 would be solid R. So it would be very hard to get any state to switch.

BTW I see no reason to assume that a popular vote would hurt rural voters. After all, states elect their governors, senators and others by popular vote and you don't see them campaigning solely in urban areas.


Juris -

No system is perfect, but IMO National Popular Vote would surely be better than what we have now... a system where:

* most states and most voters are taken for granted and ignored

* the candidate with the most votes can lose

To me, those are much more serious flaws than the ones you mention.

fang2415 said...

@yohoho78:

You're definitely right about the 270 thing empowering third parties, but I actually think that would be an advantage of proportionality. The current system favors two-party lock pretty heavily, and personally I think an environment where more parties could actually matter would be a big step forward.

As for adoption, I see what you mean, but I could see a counter-argument too. Switching to proportionality would lessen the impact of swing states and increase the impact of safe states (though against the ruling party's interest). I could see two incentives for adoption:

1) States who are swing states now and want to "lock in" their contested status in the future.

Colorado is actually a perfect example -- they actually voted on this in 2004, but the change would have applied (possibly illegally) to the 2004 election itself. The measure failed because CO didn't want to lose the swing status it knew it had at that moment. But if the measure had applied to future elections, Coloradans from both parties might have reasoned that they'd rather keep Colorado somewhat competetive in the future regardless of whether the state's party balance shifted away from 50-50.

The key is that contested electors are what matter. Under the current system, a state either gets many contested electors (9 for CO, 20 for OH, etc.) or 0. With proportional electors, each state almost always gets 1 or 2. If states are willing to gamble that they will be one of the handful of swing states that matter, then they stick with the current system; if they want to play it safe, it's in their interest to switch.

2) If a state is going to give up a lot of its national relevance by signing up to the National Popular Vote, it might as well keep some by going proportional.

You could be right about the rural voters thing BTW. I just think that it'd be easier to make a less radical departure from the intent of the system we've got and I'm surprised that I haven't heard anybody advocating it.

yohoho78 said...

fang2415 -

I don't think proportionality would empower third parties. It would simply throw the election into Congress whenever a strong third candidate happens to run. Personally I'd hate to see Congress choose our president and I think most people would feel the same way... which is probably why nobody's advocating the idea.

And in fact most Americans already agree on a simpler solution. Every poll for the past 65 years has shown a large and consistent majority of the public favoring a direct popular vote. This majority exists in swing states and solid states, in big states and small states, among Democrats, Republicans and independents alike.

"One voter = one vote" is definitely a radical departure from our existing system. But it's hardly a radical idea... at least not for a people who cherish democracy.

nieddu said...

Rasmussen has Obama leading only 11 point in hie home state of Illinois in today's released poll.
No way, I'd bet my hose in Eureka, that Obam is at least 25 ahead in his home state of IL.

Really, something is wrong with Rasmussen polls......

CoryWilson said...

Interesting about Missouri. I have always thought that Missouri was much more closer demographically to IN and NC. All three states have large urban areas (STL, KC, Indy, "The Region" of Lake Michigan, Charlotte, Raliegh), have areas where you would think you were in a West Virginia coal mining area (south-central MO, Southern IN, northwestern NC), a lot of small, industrial centers (Springfield, MO Anderson, IN Ashville, NC) and huge religious populations.

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平平 said...

^^ nice blog!! thanks a lot! ^^

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