Let me preface this by saying itsa long way to November, but the political scientists and data geeks at Yahoo are calling the 2012 election for President Barack Obama.
From this story on Yahoo:
The Signal predicts that Barack Obama will win the presidential contest with 303 electoral votes to the Republican nominee’s 235.
How do we know? We don’t, of course. Campaigns and candidates evolve, and elections are dynamic events with more variables than can reasonably be distilled in an equation. But the data–based on a prediction engine created by Yahoo! scientists–suggest a second term is likely for the current president. This model does not use polls or prediction markets to directly gauge what voters are thinking. Instead, it forecasts the results of the Electoral College based on past elections, economic indicators, measures of state ideology, presidential approval ratings, incumbency, and a few other politically agnostic factors.
Our model combines powerful scientific algorithms with both real-time and historical data sources. We have examined the last 10 presidential elections and found that the Yahoo! model, which is the work of Yahoo Labs economists Patrick Hummel and David Rothschild, would have correctly predicted the winner in 88 percent of the 500 individual state elections.
Say what you will about this research, but I tend to review with Nate Silver of the New York Times and 538.com has to say. The only race I know that Silver booted was he called the 2010 US Senate race in Nevada for the Republican.
Rasmussen Reports = Obama reelection
“In a potential Election 2012 matchup, the president posts a 49% to 41% lead over Romney. If Santorum is the Republican nominee, the president leads 48% to 40%. Matchup results are updated daily at 9:30 a.m. Eastern (sign up for free daily e-mail update). See tracking history for all candidates.”
Obama 44% vs. Ron Paul 39% (a 5% gap)
Romney & Santorum a 8% gap each)
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/obama_administration/daily_presidential_tracking_poll
This is the sad state of our country. There are people who actually believe that Obama deserves another term as president, others who don’t care if he deserves it, but will vote for him because he is black and on the other side Ron Paul, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum are considered worthy presidential candidates. It saddens me to think the hope for our country to regain it’s prestige in the world is gone. Hope and change have left us trillions more in debt, Bush tried his best to bankrupt our country, but Obama has outpaced him. Wake up please America, there will be nothing left for our kids after 4 more years of Obama.