The Race for the White House

Today is the final day of the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina. We all know this is a tight race, so every percentage point matters. If you look at the Gallup daily tracking poll (at time of writing) Obama is leading Romney by only one point on the national scale. Yet it doesn’t really matter what Americans overall want; due to the irregularities caused by the Electoral College system. In 2000 George W. Bush was elected as president, despite his Democratic opponent, Al Gore, getting more votes. The system is quite simple to explain for anyone who doesn’t know it; basically whoever wins a majority in each state gets all the state’s Electoral Colleges. The number of Electoral Colleges each state gets varies depending on its population; California is the largest state in the union and receives 55 Electoral Colleges whereas the eight smallest states receive only 3 Electoral Colleges.

So in the end, if you vote for Obama and you live in Texas, your vote in the presidential race doesn’t really count as we all know Texas will vote Republican. Likewise in California, if you’re a Republican, your vote won’t really count as we all know that California will vote Democrat. The states in which your vote really counts (in the presidential race) are the swing states. A swing state is a state in which either candidate has a chance of winning. Probably the most famous swing states are Florida and Ohio, we remember Florida being the key to deciding the 2000 Presidential Election. Ohio last voted against the winner in 1960, also a Republican has never won the White House without winning Ohio. According to the Huffington Post (which tracks a number of different polls) there are currently seven swing states and five which only ‘lean’ to a candidate. That makes 12 states which either Romney or Obama could win.

According to the Huffington Post, 17 states are deemed as “Strong Obama” totalling 211 Electoral Colleges and four states deemed “lean Obama”. The lean Obama states are Nevada, Michigan, Minnesota and New Hampshire. Together both categories make up 247 Electoral Colleges. On the Republican side the Huffington Post deems 22 states as “Strong Romney” totalling 175 Electoral Colleges and only Georgia is deemed as “lean Romney”, adding 16 Electoral Colleges to Romney’s total.

This leaves the seven states I mentioned earlier as the real swing states and between them they have 100 Electoral Colleges, which makes the election winnable by both sides. The states deemed “tossup” by the Huffington Post are Colorado, Iowa, Wisconsin, Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina and Florida.  Obama has a slightly easier job than Romney in one aspect, as shown above Obama leads Romney in the strong and lean categories by 56 Electoral Colleges. This means he needs to capture only 23 Electoral Colleges to win the election.  If Obama wins in Florida, then he wins the election as Florida has 29 Electoral Colleges. Even if Romney wins the four more populous tossup states and loses the three lesser populated states then he still loses, but by a wafer thin four Electoral Colleges.

In the next piece I will explain why each candidate can win the election, even if things look like they’re going Obama’s way.