Election News

The new features include the following:

• Must Win for 270: Displayed separately, these are any states that, if lost, would give the other candidate to 269 or more electoral votes. Therefore any states in this category will be required in every critical path to 270.

• Not Needed for 270: Displayed separately, these are states that are not required in any critical path, like New Hampshire in the earlier example.

• Filtering: For all the states not fitting into one of the above two categories, we now display the number of combinations that include that state.  You can check one or more states to filter to only those paths that include all the checked states.

• Totals:  The total electoral votes associated with each combination are shown

• Probability:  The combinations are ordered by probability of occurring (based on polling averages).   Note that probability doesn't necessarily mean "probable".  For example, if Obama has 268 electoral votes on your map, and the states remaining are Montana and Kentucky, Montana will appear higher than Kentucky on the list, but we're talking about "improbable" in the case of Montana, and "extremely unlikely" in the case of Kentucky. Note also that when dozens of combinations remain, with multiple states in a combination, almost any single specific path is going to have a low probability, particularly if it involves toss-up states.

The Road to 270 also calculates tie scenarios that are possible with your map. Every remaining state is involved in a tie scenario, of course. The Ties page shows each possible tie scenario and how the states break out between Obama and Romney. These tie scenarios are not in any particular order at this time.

The Road to 270 feature appears when 12 or fewer states remain undecided on your map and neither candidate has reached 270 electoral votes.

270toWin is working on a page to display Republican primary polls. Hopefully, we'll have it up later today.

===

For the 2012 presidential election, Super Tuesday will occur on March 6. 10 states will hold Republican primaries or caucuses on this date, with 437 delegates up for grabs.   This represents approximately 19% of the 2,286 total Republican delegates. The delegates available on Super Tuesday alone will be greater than in all events leading up to that date.

Here's a bit more on each state holding an event on Super Tuesday. Information compiled from Wikipedia, Real Clear Politics and fivethirtyeight. The delegate counts listed are the totals for the state at the Republican convention in Tampa this summer. Included in those totals, for most states, are a few unbound delegates that won't be allocated based on the primary or caucus results.

• Alaska holds a caucus with 27 delegates, allocated proportionately. No polling information is available.
• Georgia holds an open primary with 76 delegates, allocated proportionately. Recent polling has Newt Gingrich with a low double digit lead, with Rick Santorum slightly ahead of Mitt Romney for 2nd.
• Idaho holds a caucus with 32 delegates, allocated proportionately. However, if any one candidate receives over 50%, he will receive all the delegates. No polling is available.
• Massachusetts holds a primary with 41 delegates, allocated proportionately. Romney is expected to win the vast majority of these.
• North Dakota holds a caucus with 28 delegates, allocated proportionately. No polling information is available.
• Ohio holds a primary with 66 delegates.  15 of these are at-large and allocated proportionately (except all go to any candidate getting over 50% of the vote). 48 congressional district delegates are winner-take-all. Santorum hold a high single digit lead over Romney in most recent polling. Update:  A Quinnipiac poll out March 2nd shows Santorum's lead down to 4%, within the margin of error.
• Oklahoma holds a primary with 43 delegates, allocated proportionately (except all go to any candidate exceeding 50% of the vote). Santorum has a large lead of about 20% over both Romney and Gingrich.
• Tennessee holds an open primary with 58 delegates, allocated proportionately (except all go to any candidate exceeding 66% of the vote). Santorum leads Romney by about 20% in polling.
• Vermont holds an open primary with 17 delegates, most allocated proportionately (except all go to any candidate exceeding 50% of the vote). Romney has a high single digit lead over Santorum based on limited polling.
• Virginia holds an open primary with 49 delegates. 13 of these are at-large and allocated proportionately (except all go to any candidate getting over 50% of the vote). 33 congressional district delegates are winner-take-all. Romney and Paul are the only two candidates on the ballot; polling has Romney up by over 30%.

This year's Super Tuesday is a much smaller event than the one held on February 5, 2008.   On that date, 24 states and American Samoa held their nominating elections.

On the other hand, most presidents who run for re-election and lose get beaten soundly in the process. Looking at those occurrences since 1900:

• 1992:  Clinton 370, Bush 168
• 1980:  Reagan 489, Carter 49
• 1976:  Carter 297, Ford 240
• 1932:   FDR   472, Hoover 59
• 1912:  Wilson 435, Taft 8

Purely based on history, it would seem a close electoral outcome is unlikely this year. However, as a reminder, with only 56 prior presidential elections, each 4 years apart, these kinds of facts are of very limited predictive value.

February 14: Name the 4 presidents (excluding FDR), with Vice Presidents that served 2 full terms with them, who weren’t subsequently elected President

Answer: James Monroe (Daniel Tompkins), Woodrow Wilson (Thomas Marshall), Bill Clinton (Al Gore), George W. Bush (Dick Cheney).

• Although we excluded FDR, his first vice-president, John Nance Garner served the first two full terms of that administration.
• It is interesting that this was a rare event until recent times. Is the vice-presidency no longer a path to the highest office, or is this just a temporary historical blip? Only time will tell.
• For a full list of presidents and their vice-presidents, see this Wikipedia article.

-------

February 9: Part 1: Name the first President born as an American citizen.  Part 2: Of all the Presidents born as American citizens, name the state that has been the birthplace of the greatest number of them.

Answer: Part 1:  Martin Van Buren    Part 2:   Ohio with 7.     Many of our early presidents were born while the now United States was still under British rule. In fact, each president from Washington to Andrew Jackson was born a British subject.  Martin Van Buren was the first born an American citizen (born 1782 in Kinderhook, New York). Van Buren’s successor, William Henry Harrison was the final president not born as an American citizen.

As for part 2, Virginia is the birthplace of 8 presidents. However, 5 of the 8 Virginians were in the group born as British subjects.  Therefore, Ohio, with 7 presidents born there (all American citizens at birth) is the correct answer to the question asked. For more information, see this Wikipedia article.

-------

February 6: Since 1900, there have been 28 presidential elections. Only 3 states have voted exactly 50% of the time (14 elections each) for the Democrat and Republican nominees. Saturday’s caucus state, Nevada, is one of them. Name the other two.

Answer: Missouri and Virginia, along with Nevada, have voted 50% of the time for the Democrat and Republican nominee since 1900. Related facts on voting since 1900:

• South Dakota has voted Republican the most often, 24 times
• Arkansas has voted Democrat the most often, 20 times

-------

February 1: Name the last election year where one candidate won the electoral votes of all states with any territory in the Mountain time zone? 

Answer:  In 1984, Ronald Reagan won all the states in the Mountain time zone. Most of this time zone votes Republican in each election. In fact, 7 states with some territory in that time zone haven’t voted for a Democrat since 1964. (See accompanying screen shot from our iPad app’s map library). The answer would have been 2004, except for the fact that Oregon has a small sliver of territory in the Mountain time zone. Armed with that information, one could use 270toWin Answers to see when the last time a Republican won Oregon.    It was 1984 and, conveniently, all the other Mountain states (and almost the entire map) were red that year.

-------

January 31: After each of last 7 Censuses, 1 state has gained 2+ electoral votes, one has lost 2+. Name both. 

Answer:   Florida (+2 or more) and New York (-2 or more). Coming close were California, Pennsylvania and Texas. California had gained 2 or more in 7 censuses from 1930 through 1990. However, this dropped to +1 in 2000 and no change in 2010. Pennsylvania has lost at least one electoral vote in the last 9 censuses, while Texas has gained at least one in the last 7.

-------

January 30: How many presidential incumbents have won re-election?

Answer:   21 incumbents have won re-election. See the list below. 

1. Washington, 1792
2. Jefferson, 1804
3. Madison, 1812
4. Monroe, 1820
5. Jackson, 1832
6. Lincoln, 1864
7. Grant, 1872
8. McKinley, 1900
9. T. Roosevelt, 1904
10. Wilson, 1916
11. Coolidge, 1924
12. F. Roosevelt, 1936
13. F. Roosevelt, 1940
14. F. Roosevelt, 1944
15. Truman, 1948
16. Eisenhower, 1956
17. Johnson, 1964
18. Nixon, 1972
19. Reagan, 1984
20. Clinton, 1996
21. Bush, 2004

-------

January 27: What state has voted Republican in the most presidential elections?

Answer: Although it is a very blue state today, Vermont has voted Republican 33 times, more than any other state. From 1856 to 1960, Vermont voted Republican in 27 consecutive elections. After siding with Johnson in 1964, the state vote Republican from 1968 (Nixon’s first term) through 1988 (George Herbert Walker Bush’s first term).

Here are interactive versions of the 5 strategies. Which strategy is most likely to be successful? What if the basic premise (of winning all the Kerry states) is wrong? These maps are editable.... use them as a starting point to test the Obama campaign's beliefs against your own. 

1. West Path: 2004 Kerry states +  Colorado, Iowa, Nevada and New Mexico  (the Newsweek article leaves Iowa out)
2. Florida Path: 2004 Kerry states + Florida
3. South Path: 2004 Kerry states + North Carolina and Virginia
4. Midwest Path: 2004 Kerry states + Iowa and Ohio
5. Expansion Path:  2004 Kerry states with a loss in Pennsylvania and New Hampshire, offset with gains in Arizona, Colorado, Iowa, Nevada, New Mexico and Virginia.   (this strategy is not fully spelled out in the article).

• Nobody has ever won a presidential election when losing both Iowa and Missouri
• Nobody has ever won losing both New Hampshire and North Carolina
• A Republican has never won when losing Ohio; 1960 for a Democrat
• The last time a Republican won while losing Florida was 1924
• The last time a Democrat won while losing Pennsylvania was 1948
• The last time a Republican won while losing Colorado and Nevada was 1908
• Early primary trivia: The last time a Democrat won while losing Iowa and New Hampshire was 1976; it has never happened for a Republican
• One must go back to Zachary Taylor and the Whig Party, in the 1848 election, to find the last time someone won when losing Michigan and Missouri

Here are some features of the app that you won't find on the 270toWin website:

• The Interactive Map:  The 270toWin map is even better on the iPad, featuring a full palette of 7 colors.   3 reds and blues (safe, likely, leaning) and white for toss-ups.   Each color is available at a touch.

• The Library:   Approximately 30 election map templates, across six categories.   These maps are educational on their own, and any of them can serve as the starting point for your 2012 map, at a touch.

• Save Your Maps:  Your maps are automatically saved, and can be named to help you tell them apart.   Make 1 map or 100, you are only limited by the memory on your iPad.
• No Internet Connection Needed:   Use the App in the classroom, on a plane or at the beach, whether you are connected or not.
• The History:  One of our favorite features is the presentation of the historical elections.   Slide your finger along the navigation to bring the past to life.