Unless something shakes up the presidential race in the next three months, there’s a good chance that the only happy people on Election Day will be political nerds.
That’s because most polls show President Obama and GOP nominee-to-be Mitt Romney roughly equal, which could lead to a split vote (a la 2000) or even a tie.
Among major national polls, only Reuters shows Obama with a lead above 3 points (he’s plus-6, 49% to 43%). Two, Rasmussen and the Washington Times, have Romney up 1, while the RealClearPolitics poll average has Obama up by 2 — 46.5% to 44.5%. But whether it’s 1 or 3 either way, it doesn’t really matter. It’s within the margin of “anything can happen.”
That’s certainly what Paul West of the Los Angeles Times sees, suggesting that an electoral tie is not out of the realm of possibility. Romney takes Ohio and Florida, Obama takes Pennsylvania and the rest are carved up in a way that they both have 269 electoral votes — one short of the winning threshold.
“In the event of an electoral-vote deadlock, the Constitution orders the House of Representatives to hold what is known as a contingent election. Each state’s delegation casts one vote,” West writes. “Thus, each of the seven states with a single House member, such as Alaska, South Dakota and Wyoming, has power to select the next president that is equal to California’s 53-member delegation.”
Because of the makeup of state delegations, this would almost certainly go Romney’s way, West notes.
Perhaps more likely is a split of the popular and electoral votes, as happened in the 2000 election between George W. Bush and Al Gore. In City Journal magazine, Tim Groseclose, author of “Left Turn,” runs the numbers and finds that red states gained six electoral votes in the last census. Romney, then, would have the winning advantage even if Obama grabs, say, 2% more of the nation’s overall voters.
It might all be worth it just to see cable channel anchors freak the hell out.