This author has spent a lot of time and effort in studying, analyzing, evaluating the Presidential Election contest of 2012, and is now ready to project the final result.
Barack Obama has been long predicted to win at least 237 electoral votes to Mitt Romney’s 191 electoral votes, with nine states in play as “swing” or “battleground” states, all of which Obama won in 2008.
The prediction that the author wishes to make is that Obama will win ALL of the nine competitive states, except North Carolina, giving him 332 electoral votes to Romney’s 206 electoral votes!
So Obama will win New Hampshire, Virginia, Florida, Ohio, Iowa, Wisconsin, Nevada, and Colorado, with a total of 95 electoral votes, added to the 237, making the final total of 332 electoral votes.
Romney, by winning the 15 electoral votes of North Carolina, will go from 191 to 206 in the final total of electoral votes.
It also means that Obama will have won every state he won in 2008, except Indiana and North Carolina, and a total of 26 states and the District of Columbia. Romney will win 24 states.
Also, expect that the popular vote will be close in North Carolina, Indiana, Missouri, Arizona, Georgia, and Montana, with Romney winning, but with hints that Democrats will have a grand opportunity to win those states in 2016 and beyond, with the growing Hispanic-Latino vote. The first hint will be the likely victories for the Senate of Democrats Joe Donnelly in Indiana, Claire McCaskill in Missouri, Jon Tester in Montana, and Richard Carmona in Arizona.
Additionally, Obama should win about 52 percent of the vote to 47 percent of the vote for Romney, with Gary Johnson and other third party candidates winning slightly more than one percent of the total vote.
This means Obama will have won by a slightly smaller percentage of the popular vote and fewer electoral votes, but with the factor of reapportionment of seats due to the Census of 2010 changing downward many of the Frost Belt states which support Barack Obama, plus the loss of North Carolina and Indiana from 2008.
Still, overall, a very impressive performance can be expected!
Comments on this projection of the results are welcome!