It is possible that Obama wins the election (E Votes) and loses the popular vote

[titaniumsalute]

The overall beauty contest of national polling is showing Romney tied or even up in most cases. However, the electoral college map shows Obama winning by a decent margin. I think it's possible Romney wins enough southeast rascists in already red states and loses the electoral college.

[DrToast]

1. Yes, it's possible.*

*

[scheming daemons]

2. Yes... .and I will tell every Republican I know to "get over it!"

[geek tragedy]

3. I almost want them to suffer from having 2000 reversed.

I think that's the most likely scenario.

[democrattotheend]

10. Part of me thinks it would be good for the country

Maybe if 2 elections in 12 years turn out that way there will be some bipartisan support for getting rid of or at least reforming the electoral college.

[Drunken Irishman]

4. It's possible. But it's unlikely.

Obama is doing better in the major southern states than John Kerry in 2004. The states Romney could run up his margins in are very small and won't put much dent into the national polls. If Obama is tied in North Carolina, ahead in Ohio, tied in Florida and ahead in Virginia, it seems almost mathematically impossible to not win the popular vote. Even if Romney wins Mississippi or Utah by, say, 70 points.

Obama is also owning larger leads in reliably blue states than Kerry in '04 ... who only lost the popular vote by 2.4 and that included losing states like Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Ohio - states Obama leads in right now.

[LisaL]

5. Sure is.

Just ask Bush II.

[Alekei_Firebird]

6. LV screens are really screwing things up

If EV across the country are of any indication, then the LV screens used by the major polling companies are pretty useless right now.

[Drunken Irishman]

9. That's just it. The national polls don't add up.

1) Obama has a far larger lead in the bigger blue states (California, New York, Illinois) than Kerry won in '04.

Obama leads in California by an average of 16.3 points. Kerry won the state by 10 points in 2004. That's a six-point difference in the most populous state in the country.

Obama leads in New York by an average of a 27.7 points. Kerry won the state by 18 points. Obama is doing nearly 10 points better in the third most populous state.

Obama leads in Illinois by 15 points (I suspect it's bigger). Kerry won the state by 10 points in '04. Obama is doing 5 points better in the fifth most populous state.

2) Obama is doing better in the bigger southern states (Texas, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia) than Kerry in '04.

3) Obama is doing better in the swing states than Kerry in '04 - including states Bush carried (Colorado, Florida, Ohio, New Mexico, Nevada and Iowa).

What does this all mean? Kerry lost the popular vote by only 2.4 points. If Obama is leading by the margins the state polls suggest, he is not losing the popular vote.

[LiberalFighter]

11. They are using Ryan math.

[ShadowLiberal]

12. I think there's explanations for a lot of those items

-In California, republicans have fallen even farther behind in the last 8 years. For example, in 2010, a horrible year for us, republicans managed to nearly impossible feat fo LOSING seats in the CA legislature, despite already being down 2 to 1, and that was BEFORE redistricting, so that doesn't explain it either, republicans are just becoming a deeper minority in California.

-Not sure about New York.

-Obama is from Illionois, hence why he's doing better there.

-Democrats have lost ground in the deep south in the last 8 years. There's almost zero white democrats elected in deep south states, almost all the democrats from those states are African Americans in heavily African American districts of highly concentrated votes, or in a few rare cases I think there's some heavily Hispanic districts with Hispanic congressmen to.

Still, I agree that there's something fishy with national and state polls, Nate Silver analyzed this a few weeks ago and said both polls are probably off a bit.

[MiniMe]

7. Of course it is possible

GWB did it in 2000, but I doubt it will happen.

[Jennicut]

8. It is possible but remember that in 2000 the popular vote was very hard to predict.

If we look at only RCP then Romney has nearly a one point lead in the average national polling.

Bush had a bit more then that in 2000 and ended up behind Gore in the popular vote because a 1 to 2 point lead is so statistically close that the actual vote could have gone either way. Lots of people making the popular vote for Romney claim are really doing so based on at the most a .09% lead.

Technically Gore won Florida in my opinion, so the 2000 race was not a true electoral win. Bush simply did not perform as well in the national polling and Gore nearly won both the popular vote and electoral vote. The last time an actual electoral vote win accured was in the 1800's. The problem could simply be LV models in national polls that undervalue certain voters. Or all the state polls are really, really off and Romney has 2 to 5 point leads in all of them.