National Popular Vote projection nearly spot on
November 5th, 2008
Rob Richie
Rob Richie is director of FairVote. See his page at fairvote.org for more information.
Showing that there really is something to our method of measuring state partisanship and the connections between past results and this year’s results, my projection of Barack Obama winning 52.5% of the national popular vote made last night before 11 pm eastern time at a time while most states only had preliminary results is looking spot on. The latest popular vote percentages are:
Obama - 52.4%
McCain - 46.3%
Others - 1.3%
For all the talk of a “new electoral map,” it largely isn’t true — it’s simply a map that looks different when there is a distinct shift in the two-party vote. If we have a 50-50 election in the 2012 election, the map may lookremarkably as it did in 2004. We’ll have a full analysis soon.
Other posts by Rob Richie
- Founding FairVote backer and Cincinnati legend Harris Weston dies - July 4th, 2009
- Sarah Palin's resignation to reduce women governors to six - July 3rd, 2009
- Delaware house votes 2 to 1 for National Popular Vote - 29th chamber in 18th state - June 24th, 2009
- Obama's political team: Expediency over principle in "working" Electoral College rather than reforming it - June 21st, 2009
- Special interests upset with instant runoff voting in San Francisco - and broader lessons - June 21st, 2009
- FairVote chair Krist Novoselic makes key point about rights of association in candidacy - June 17th, 2009
- Brennan Center's new report on universal registration joins FairVote in highlighting Canadian model - June 16th, 2009
- Instant runoff voting in Australia: Guest blogger Ben Raue - June 16th, 2009
- Washington, D.C. City council has chance to make D.C. a "beacon of democracy" - June 13th, 2009
- Slamdunk win in Minnesota Supreme Court highlights big week for instant runoff voting - June 12th, 2009
November 5th, 2008 at 5:47 pm
Given the recent closeness of the presidential race in NE-2, I’d bet there’s going to be a lot of clammering to change NE to winner take all. I wonder if National Popular Vote supporters shouldn’t try to latch on to that, insisting on pairing any change to winner take all with the adoption of the compact.
November 5th, 2008 at 6:52 pm
Good point. This change in allocation rules was already proposed in Nebraska last year, and I suspect that it will be raised again.