How will the undecided break? The Romney campaign has always argued that all of the undecided vote will vote for him, and that is why he will win. Unfortunately, history and facts paint a much different reality, a reality that is unkind to the Mittens. From First Read:
“The [latest NBC/Wall Street Journal Marist] survey found that 9% of the likely voters are up for grabs (meaning they’re undecided or just leaning to a candidate), and these folks have more positive feelings toward Obama than Romney. Obama’s job approval with them is 48% approve, 41% disapprove. What’s more, Obama’s fav/unfav with them is 46%/29%, vs. Romney’s upside down 22%-49%. Bottom line: Our pollsters see more of an opportunity for Obama among these voters and more of an uphill climb for Romney.”
“You know [Obama] proved [it in] the way he handled this terrible storm Sandy in the Northeast: getting off the campaign trail, putting aside politics, working with the Republican governor of New Jersey, the independent mayor of New York City, and the Democratic governors of New York and Connecticut. It was a stunning example of how ‘we’re all in this together’ is a way better philosophy than you’re on your own,” – Bill Clinton, campaigning in Concord, New Hampshire.
“If I hear anybody say it was because Romney wasn’t conservative enough I’m going to go nuts. We’re not losing 95% of African-Americans and two-thirds of Hispanics and voters under 30 because we’re not being hard-ass enough.” — Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), quoted by Politico, saying that demographics would be the only reason for a hypothetical Mitt Romney loss Tuesday.
Mark Halperin: “Don’t kill me for the obvious, but the near absence of racial diversity in the Romney crowds is teased out further by the contrast with the rainbow the President draws. It is more striking than I have ever experienced it in any presidential campaign I have covered.”
Nate Silver finds President Obama with an 88% chance to win the presidential election and that the barrage of swing state polls showing him leading Mitt Romney represents “powerful evidence against the idea that the race is a ‘tossup.’ A tossup race isn’t likely to produce 19 leads for one candidate and one for the other — any more than a fair coin is likely to come up heads 19 times and tails just once in 20 tosses. (The probability of a fair coin doing so is about 1 chance in 50,000.)”
“Instead, Mr. Romney will have to hope that the coin isn’t fair, and instead has been weighted to Mr. Obama’s advantage. In other words, he’ll have to hope that the polls have been biased in Mr. Obama’s favor… They could be biased. Based on the historical reliability of polls, we put the chance that they will be biased enough to elect Mr. Romney at 16%.”
Jon Ralston: “I know the Romney folks and some RNC operatives believe they can still win, despite trailing by nearly 50,000 votes in early voting. But they need everything to break right — President Obama hemorrhages Democrats and independents vote in huge numbers for Romney, two things I do not see happening. It would be very difficult for Obama to lose Nevada, especially because I think more than two-thirds of the vote is in, so whatever turnout advantage the GOP has on Tuesday won’t be enough. Obama, 50 percent; Romney, 46 percent; others and ‘none of the above,’ 4 percent.”