The 2012 Election
Now that the election is in the history books...and I am sure the books will record it as historic...let the analysis begin. Here are some links to some amazing data
1) Election results by state, by county and by margin of victory
2) Campaign spending
3) Exit polls
4) Voter shifts from 2008
Choose one or more links, spend a bit of time studying the data/graphics and then respond to the following - SO WHAT?
Yes, this is an assignment. Try and post early so someone else hasn't already posted your brilliance.
Mr. Thompson
posted by erdecker @ 4:34 PM
56 comments
56 Comments:
This year's election shows how the favors in President Obama has gone down. He has decreased about 7 million since the last 2008 election.Some of the states that he triumphed in was done so by a narrow margin. For example, even though Obama took votes from Florida, the Democratic victory was 50% to 49.1%. The entire election win was 50.6% to 47.8%. This shows that the American people have been disappointed in President Obama, and that the small victory was a wake up call to him. He was put into office by promising change and hope to the people. He entered office in a time of economic hardships, and the American population elected President Obama in hopes that he had the power to change the way that current situations of that time were going. In placing hope in the President for 4 years, and come out with little accomplishments, the American people just want change. It's not an upsetting thing to win, but it's not a celebration to win by that narrow of a margin, and decrease of votes.
The results from 2008 to 2012 differ greatly. Although he won, Obama has lost a lot of support among women and unmarried men. 43% of males voted for Obama in 2008. In 2012, it is up to 45%. Also, results show that most religious people voted for Romney. One thing that didn't change is the way that college kids voted. Obama still held the majority their.
There***
It is interesting to see that even though Romney spent more on ads, he was still defeated in the states where he spent most of his money. Part of this may be because he 6% more on negative ads that Obama did. Romney spent about 447. 2 million of his total 492 million on those negative ads. It just goes to show that people don't necessarily like attack ads and in the end, most people are just annoyed by them
I couldn't believe the enormous amount of dollars spent on campaigning by both sides. As the numbers show, the amount a candidate puts in on advertisement doesn't really pay off in the end. I feel that most people already have a good idea of who they intend to vote for before campaigning. If anything is going to sway how people vote, it's what the president's say in debates and speeches; what they say when they're not tearing down their opponent, but talking about what they will do personally that makes them a superior candidate. I also feel that this campaign money could be used in a much more productive way in our country.
- Sarah Owens
The outlandish spending by both candidates introduces a new era into politics where both sides will clog the airwaves with political ads. Gone are the days where most of the funding came from voter contributions. The new trend is now to have Super-Pacs independently dump money into the campaign. The impact of this is that potential canditates who don't find any Super-Pacs to support them will be at a huge disadvantage. Also, this means that the amount of money put into this campaign will become the norm, and perhaps become dwarfed, as time goes on and more Super-Pacs arise. In a sense, there can be a positive effect to the Super-Pacs: that candidates who don't have a lot of money can still get their platform across. However, if more Super-Pacs trend towards one party in the future, the other party will have a gargantuan hurtle to jump in reaching the voters.
Exit polls taken in 2008 and 2012 show that for the issues of healthcare, the economy, foreign policy and the federal budget deficit, there wasn't a considerable shift in what were the top issues. Healthcare still is a top issue of liberals while everything else was a top issue for conservatives. This may suggest that both liberals and conservatives still seem to dealing with or at least supporting the same thing they were 4 years ago. This may suggest that little headway has been made in these issues if the same percentage of people are voting on them in this election as in the last. It also shows how polar the different parties are on what is important to them. Perhaps if the main concerns of the nation were shared among all the parties, solutions would be found for them. But that would assume that everyone agrees on something for once instead of just disagreeing with what the other side was doing.
~Carol Hickman
I don't know where I read it, but the impact of campaign funding is likely less then people seem to think. The funds seem to be related more to how much support a campaign has, it does not create support for a campaign. A great example would be how more money was spent on Romney then on Obama, but Obama still won.
I found it interesting that Romney and the Republican party spent a total of $204M, while Obama and the Democrats spent $356M. This means that Romney had $288M of third party support, while Obama only had $48M of third party support.
I really liked the exit polls graph, it showed lots of info very quickly and easily. Compared to 2008, the results show trends toward republican in almost all of the categories, and any trends toward democrat were typically very small.
With metropolitan areas continuing to grow way faster then rural areas, and the democratic party typically catering toward city residents, the republican party may have to do as the news outlets say and completely rethink their entire platform. However as this is only the second election in a row where they have lost, I personally doubt anything so dramatic would be necessary.
While analyzing the National exit polls, it was interesting to see how the majority of the votes have become more Republican even though the democrats won the election. This chart easily correlates with approval ratings of the President. With the few exceptions of, Hispanics, Asians, people who believe the economy is good, and those who are in better condition than they were four years ago, there are no significant increases to democratic support. Although Obama won, it seems as though the voters had to choose between the better of two ‘no so goods’. So, the President is going to have to work very hard to increase his, and the democratic party‘s, approval ratings.
- Herchran Singh
I looked at the campaign spending amounts for the 2012 election and noticed that about 90% of each party focuses on negative adds. Which means that out of the 95 million dollars spend on campaign ads in Florida for the Republicans, 85 million was spent on bashing the Democrats. The Democrats aren't doing much better, 66.3 million out of the 75 million spent was for negative campaigning. This has a huge impact on the turnout of voters on election day. Those that see these negative ads for months on end certainly take that into account of whether or not they will go to the poles. Also, the party isn't advertising what they will do, or trying to get voters to vote for them, their just getting voters to not vote for the other guy, which doesn't neccesarily mean that they, in turn, will end up with the vote. It would be interesting to see what the polls would show if the negative advertising decreased in either party.
-Alicia Karls
I studied the changes in the results of the exit polls from the 2008 election to the 2012 election. I was surprised on how the percent of those supporting Obama or the Republican candidate has changes based on the age of voters. I noticed that the number of those who voted, age 18-29, for Obama decreased from 66% to 60% over the four years, but those in the age range of 30-44 maintained the same percentage. I believe that this may have a direct relation to the income made by the average citizen in these ranges. Since those on the younger side of the range mainly would qualify for the “Under $50k” range, 60% in both 2008 and 2012 voted for Obama. The data following this showed that with an increase in age, most likely as well in income, the voters’ views shifted towards the Republican side. This also may be due to other contributing factors such as education, religion, and values passed down from older generations.
-Katie Piens
Judging from the links, although President Obama won reelection, he did so by a smaller margin than in 2008. This seems to suggest that although a small majority of voters considered him more favorably than Mitt Romney, President Obama is still dealing with backlash over the slow recovery of the economy. People who thought that the economy is getting better tended to vote more for President Obama, while people who think the economy is doing poorly tended to vote more for Mitt Romney according to statistics from the Washington Post.
--Dimitra Andreadaki
The impact, and influence of the Electoral College is evident in the final results of this election: President Obama and Governor Romney had a close race (compared Obama vs. McCain), with Romney coming in less than 3% behind Obama in popular votes. And as we discussed in class, it was the larger cities that pushed Obama's electoral vote count over the top. And in each election, the amount of money spent on ads has increased, which seemly leaves voters more annoyed than swayed toward one campaign or the other. Not only does the divide between Democrat and Republicans show in Congress, but also in voters, particularly by race and income. Looking at the exit polls, American's are unsure about what path the U.S. needs to take to reboot our economy, with a divide their as well.
*there*
Despite the close race, the electoral college has held up its democratic underpinnings: Obama won both the popular and electoral votes. Although the popular vote was much closer than the electoral vote,Obama's victory in both supports the vailidity of the Founding Fathers' rather odd system.
The interesting part comes in the break down of who voted for whom. Younger voters generally tended to vote democratic. These are the members of society who will be around the longest. Unless their views change as they age, it appears that America is generally leaning towards a more liberal government. However, contrary to the appearance of a more united liberal front in the future, the exit polls show that Party loyalty has grown stronger, suggesting that America is also heading towards a stricter separation between political parties. Combining these two projections, Americans are more segregated along party lines, but the democratic party appears to have greater numbers made up of people who will be around longer.
Sorry for such a late reply.. I haven't checked the blog
Despite President Obama being re-elected, he lost support in nearly every category presented on the chart. All races besides Hispanic and Asian voted more republican in the 2012 election than in 2008. Independent parties went from voting primarily democratic to voting republican. Although Obama won the 2012 election, the results from this poll shows that there is growing dissatisfaction with President Obama. Unless President Obama does in fact come through with the change and forward progress that he had campaigned with as his slogans the past elections, this overall decrease in Democratic support will likely result in a Republican President being elected in 2016
-Aaron Grad
According to the Exit Polls 2012, the most apparent stereotypes appear to be true - the assumptions that white men voted for Romney and minorities voted for Obama. There is much more to it than that, but that was a curious observation on my part. Though by looking at the polls, it appears that not a whole lot changed from Obama's support from 2008 to 2012, the margin of victory was much closer. Indeed, the elderly again voted mostly Republican, those with lower incomes again voted Democrat,and those with liberal or moderate views tended to vote Democrat in both the 2008 and 2012 elections. Though the margin was closer, yet the support of either side was fairly well known, it seems interesting to me that "white men" are considered a majority in this society. If the "majority" voted one way, and the election didn't go that way, for how much longer will they be the "majority" and how could this come to affect our country's views and decisions overall?
-Melissa Parry
The article that showed campaign spending by each candidate shows numbers that are extremely outlandish, but they are not the entire total. Those numbers are only the dollars spent on tv ads, leaving out the amount spent on campaigning in other ways. It is incredible to see that both candidates spent a total of 896 million dollars combined on television ads. It is also interesting to show that all this spending was in fact on tv ads, which shows that the American public spends more time viewing their tv than anything else. Choosing tv ads is also a clever way of advertising for themselves in that the viewers of the show will sit through the commercial and watch it before returning to their show, while if they sent their ads through the mail, the viewer could discard it without reading it at all.
-Janek Walker
When comparing the 2008 votes and the 2012 votes, it is surprising to see how many less democratic voters there are. In 2008, 6.9 million voted for Obama, and in 2012 6.2 million voted for him; unlike the republican votes, which stayed around 5.9 million. It looks as if 3% less of the population voted in the 2012 election. In addition, looking at the state and county margins, the most concentrated areas of Republican are in Utah and Central Texas. This is plausible because of religious views. Most of the Democratic votes are concentrated in Michigan, California and Southern Florida. When looking at the county results, it looks as if the Republicans had won, but where the little blue is shown is where most of the nation population stands.
--ClaireO
Though Obama won the presidential election this year, pro-Romney had spent more on the election by 88 million dollars. This is probably because Romney needs to get himself out in America. Pro-Obama never spent more money than pro-Romney on any state at any given time. But, each candidate did increase their spending during the third presidential debate. Both of the candidates had most of their campaign spending on negative ads (Obama-85%, Romney-91%). Romney spent almost 1/5 of his campaigning money on Florida alone! Both candidates spent the majority of their money on the swing states which include: Florida, Virginia, Ohio, Iowa, Nevada, Colorado, and North Carolina. All together the two of them spent $896 million on the election for ads. This is amazing how much money they are willing to spend on the elections. This money could probably be spent in more useful places. Spending has gone up more and more every elections. This is due to the high competition. Every election the candidates feel they need to set the bar even higher than the election before in order to impress the voters. I believe that this pattern will continue and the money spent in elections will continue to get higher.
--Kaitlyn Zander (Hour: 6)
Only twice in history has the person that spends less on campaigning won the presidential election. This number is now thrice! Obama spent $404 million, Romney spent $492 million. Romney's tactics were slandering obama, since he spent 91% of that money, or $448 million was spent on negative ads. Obama had the obvious advantage as the incumbent, and playing on the minority vote (according to [http://www.brookings.edu/research/opinions/2012/05/01-race-elections-frey]), but Mitt's negativity tactic may have ended up being a disadvantage to himself.
--Micah Hunter Ray
The exit poll results were somewhat surprising. Everything seemed in order; except for a few of the categories.
A large percent of the population viewed Romney as a stronger candidate for dealing with the economy, yet Obama won the Presidency. This seems strange because the economy/jobs/spending seemed to be the main issue of the election.
Another category that surprised me was the "top qualities" category. Obama had overwhelming support in the "cares about me category", yet Romney had more support in the "strong leader", "vision for the future", and "shares my values" categories. I think this bit of data is a little interesting: according to these polls, Obama was elected to the Presidency because he cared more for the American people rather than having a favorable vision for the American peoples's future. These two points seem to contradict each other at first because they are so similar, but I'm assuming that "cares about us" refers to the individual person while "vision for the future" refers to the nation as a whole.
All in all, it is interesting to see where the priorities of the American Populace stand.
-Nick Cox
When looking at the article about campaign spending and analyzing the graphs, I found it interesting that Mitt Romney spent more money overall with a higher percentage of that money going to negative advertisments and he lost the race. I think that this data shows that Americans cannot always be bought and more money spent on the campaign can't insure that you will win. I also think that this shows that negative advertisments are not always effective in getting across the con's of the other runningmate and when you attack them in the advertisements it can even hurt your image more than their's. When the candidates run ad's belittling their opponent the American public sees those attacks and it sometimes sways the voter to believe that the candidate is more focused on attacking their opponent than focusing on the key issues at hand and working on their own campaign. Money cannot buy you your own success in an election if it is used in a way to degrade another and it is not used to fix the problems of today. More money does not always secure a win.
One interesting trend I saw was when I was comparing the voter shifts from North Carolina, the only swing state Romney won, to the national voter shifts. While the shifts in North Carolina were opposite of the national shifts, which might be expected since Romney won North Carolina while Obama won nationally, most of the shifts in North Carolina took place in groups that are not traditionally Republican. For example, nationally males greatly increased to voting more Republican while females only slightly increased. However, in North Carolina females greatly shifted to voting Republican while males actually voted more Democratic. In education, those with greater education shifted more Republican nationally, while in North Carolina people who had no high school education shifted almost by 10% to voting Republican. Also, while higher incomes nationally shifted to voting more Republican, in North Carolina, higher incomes shifted slightly to voting more Democratic while those who made less than 50K a year voted more Republican. This is also mirrored in ethnicity, where minorities didn’t shift much either way in North Carolina compared to significant shifts towards voting Democratic with Asians and Hispanics nationally. While I do not know why these trends are backwards of what is to be expected, if whatever Romney did to reach across demographics and win worked in North Carolina, it is likely that next election the Republican Party may try to mimic his tactics because it will be key for Republicans to try to get more votes from women, minorities, and those with less income and education.
-Sam Bellows
From analyzing the data from the Campaign Spending link, it is jaw-dropping to actually see the difference in spending from both parties. Viewing the weekly spending in the top ten states, it is clear that the amount spent from both parties was steadily increasing, but the pro-Obama spendng (in the states) remained at a much lower amount. This signifies the confidence in the democratic party, of these states, and interest groups. It is clear that they have faith in the incumbent-aspect of Obama's presidency and do not feel the need to dump loads of money on television advertsing. Florida remained on top of the spending, which tells us that it is the biggest swing state and obviously clearly undecided until the day of. The rise and fall of spending also follows with the results of each presidential debate, and republican spending spiked after the first and third debate. This most likely signifies their attempt to place ads that remind voters of Romney's pro points and facets from the debate.
Overall, Barack Obama spent about two times as much as Romney on ads, showing his greater ability and greater funds in relation to Romney, as would be expected of the current president. However, the corporations paying for ads (after Obama and Romney) are mostly on the Republican side, showing the wealth in members of the Republican party throughout the nation. This is both good and bad for Romney, as he gains funds but is missing out on the vote of those in poverty and most middle class as well. Overall, it is clear that the greater number of ads, funds, and ad sales do not necessarily secure one's win in the presidential race.
Looking at the voter shifts from 2008, there seems to have been a general shift toward republican on a national level. This is especially interesting in the realm of education, seeing as persons with a college education and above have been known to lean toward democratic in the past. The drift toward the Republican side may have to do with the way Romney presented himself as having a vision for the country as a whole. Another interesting shift was the independents/others voting more republican. Again, independents, when not voting for a third party, have tended to vote more democratic. The last interesting shift I noticed was among female voters on the national level, there was a small shift toward Republican. I find this surprising considering 'women's issues' such as birth control were heavily supported by Democrats. Perhaps there was a larger number of female voters who were Catholic or from the southern states?
Montana Smith
Looking at the Washington Post's two articles, The Spending Race and Exit Polls 2012, you can see that even though Romney spent a whopping $88 million dollars more on ads with 91% of those said ads being negative ones Obama still won in the end. Also while closely analyzing the Exit Poll data you can see that the shift from 2008 to 2012 shows that more and more people voted Democratic in 2012. Minority voters also seemed to play out in Obama's favor during both the '08 and '12 elections, with a 93% African American vote and over 70% of the Hispanic and Asian vote.
- Connor Smith
Looking at the results of the voting shifts from 2008, I noticed that in Colorado's exit polls, there seemed to be large gains in hispanics voting for Obama. In a state where nearly one-fifth of the population is hispanic, these voters could've been the turning point of this swing state. In most every swing state listed, white voters were voting more Republican when compared to the last election. Seeing this trend, Democratic candidates in the near future might turn to focus on different demographics who show a pattern of leaning Democratic recently. With this evidence, many political analists are now focusing on the budding hispanic population. Since all a candidate needs to win a state's electoral votes is the majority of a state's popular vote, I foresee an increase in interest in catering to the hispanic population. In securing their votes, a candidate could possibly be securing a victory. Especially in swing states like Colorado, where neither candidate has a sure win, a large population like the hispanic community can provide an invaluable lead. Instead of focusing large amounts of time and money on groups who are showing a trend for the opposite, Democrats might find hispanics a better target to try to win much-needed support from.
~Sarah Leichty
When looking at the exit polls and comparing them to the past election four years ago, it shows that, with the exception of a few groups, Obama lost support. Even though he won in some of these categories, less people voted for him in say the African American population that in 2008. For example, his support in 18-29 year-olds dropped from 66% to 60%. While He still won the election, these polls reveal that that might not be the case for the democrats in future elections. In 2008, Obama gained a lot of leverage from his younger voters. Now, in 2012, he lost 6% of those voters. This is significant because these young voters (ages 18-26) will be the next generation to be running the country and voting for officials. Therefore, by using this information of their shift in voting we can see that in the future races for president will be either incredible close or start to swing toward the republicans. However, that's not to say that this trend could change, it all depends on the candidate but the exit polls give us a little information to go off of in order to predict the future of our country.
~Grace Allen
I focused on the article titled:
Exit polls 2012: How the vote has shifted. This article had some statistical data collected from voters right after they left the polls. It shows the voters , age, ethnicity, religion etc. and who they voted for. The chart also compares Obama's 2008 exit poll results. So what can we do with all this data? Statistically, we can see how Americans have altered their view from the last election. We can also note from this who is more likely to vote for which candidate. This information can e used in the next election to help the candidates choose their target audience.
-Tim Lindquist
The Republicans and Democrats spent around $900 million dollars on advertisements this past election. The swing states were the ones that they spent the most in. Advertising helps them reach the undecided voters or the people who do not know what's going on it the election. Negative advertisements took a bulk of the money spent on advertisements; the GOP spent more on slandering advertisements than the Democrats but both spent +80% on it. The bad advertisements appeal to the older and younger voters because they touch on sensitive subjects that affect those groups. The other percentage of the advertisements were positive and most of them were for the parents and working class. Though the candidates did not pay for all the advertisements some were bought/paid for by outside groups.
The election results from 2008 and 2012 differ enough to make a difference. The Republicans improved with male voters and in college graduates. The democrats improved in votes from single men and women and votes from women. The results also show that Obama's majority of votes came from the minority group, while Romney's came from the religious and upper class. Concerning which government issues were the most important to voters, Obama just barely edged out Romney. These results show how close the presidential race was.
-Katie Ollenburg
According the Campaign Spending source, both major presidential candidates spent hundreds of millions of dollars campaigning to become president this year. Mitt Romney spent roughly $147 million on nearly 224,000 ads, while Barack Obama spent roughly $333 milliion on nearly 560,000. This shows that ads and campaigning directly to the people does improve chances of a candidate reaching presidency. This quite possibly results from the increased knowledge of the candidate that is seen more via ads as well as the increased feeling of familiarity resulting from more encounters, if even by means of ads. However, the campaigns were not equivilant in contnt either. While Romney focused 91% on negative compain ads, Obama focused only 82% on negative compaign ads. This shows that the use of negative compaigns is not as effective as it has been previously. The candidate that focused more on negative campaigning actually lost. The negative ads can be speculated to have even detered some voters for voting in favor of the man that the ads defend. Even if not working against the man sponsoring them the negative ads did not, in this example, help Romney to gain enough votes to win. People do not appreciate or care for such ads anymore.
~Danny Luedtke
While Campaign spending is higher than it has ever been, data for this election suggests that more money does not necessarily equal more votes.
Romney outspent Obama both nationwide and in the top ten spending states, yet Obama beat him out in all but one of these states [North Carolina]. In addition, Romney spent 6% more of his budget on negative ads than Obama did- again, the evidence suggests that quantity does not equal quality in a voter's mind.
In addition, campaign spending clearly illustrates basic campaign strategy. Both candidates spent a lot of money in major swing states like Florida ($173 million total- $78 million from the democrats and $95 million from republicans), while states like New York- an established democratic state- had very little spending. Both states have 29 electoral votes, but Florida had a higher rate of return than New York, since New York was going to vote Democrat whether or not campaign ads were shown and Florida had the infamous "undecided voters" ironically deciding the election result.
Rayyan Mikati
I studied the article on Exit Polls. The most alarming fact I saw from this was that our president now, was not the one who won the exit poll question "Is a strong leader" or "Has a vision for the future". I could care less how many percent of white republicans who own a house in Malibu and have a dog named sparky vote for a certain candidate.If we can't have a president that at least the majority of Americans believe have a strong vision for where we as a country are headed and is a strong leader then we are obviously headed down the wrong path as a country.
-Nate Johnson
I chose to study the exit poles of the 2012 elect and wow! It seems like always the Republican party dominated the election when you look county by county. However, you see the Democrats dominating the big cities which hold A LOT of votes because it seems after winning the big city they win the state because most of the popular votes come from there. I also took a look at the campaign spending and WOW! We should have elections more often, that's a lot of money that went into our economy! Its actually cool to see the campaign strategies effected by the winner take all feature because we see most if not almost all money, visits, and ads poured into the swing states. For example in the Miami-Ft. Lauderdale area had a collective $38 million spent on ads by the Democrats and Republicans which outweighed the $10 million (if that, just a rough estimate) spent on all of Minnesota! So you see swing states mean more than states you know will remain for the most part the same.
Ahmed Ahmed
Based on the Exit polls, people, when asked what the top quality they want their president is, had very differing opinions from democrat to republican. The poll shows that 81% of voters who agreed that the most important quality in a president is, "cares about me," were democrats. In contrast, "has a vision for the future," and, "is a strong leader," were both statments strongly chosen by republicans. So what? This proves further an ideal of the two parties as democrats are known for their, "help out each individual," mentality while republicans tend to take a less personal and more wholistic approch. -Bekah Frost
This year Obama won the election by a smaller margin than he did four years ago. This narrow win is similar to the reelection of George W. Bush in 2004. This conveys the uncertainty of voters at the end of a president's first term, especially in a struggling economy. Do voters want to stick with a President who is barely fixing the economy or risk electing a new president who may be less experienced? Those who viewed foreign policy and healthcare as more important issues leaned towards Obama, while those who viewed the economy and the deficit as the top issues leaned towards Romney. This shows a divide between what the US views as its biggest problems. The disparity and close elections are not only caused by favoring the two-party system, but also by differing opinions on what exactly our nation's biggest problems are.
After examining the results of the exit polls from this years election as compared to the election in 2008 I came to a conclusion that, although most of the numbers stayed almost exactly the same there were some changes. One of the changes that I found the most interesting was the amount of people that found Romney to be a better leader of the country. This was a dramatic change from the 2008 election where Obama beat out McCain on that vote.
I chose to study the Exit Poll article. I found it entirely interesting that the black race actually turned more republican from 4% in 2008 to 6% in 2012. This actually gives a little faith in America that our president is not being chosen based on his race(as i believe he did in 2008). It was quite sad to see that Obama was really only known to "care about people like me" not "good leader" or "vision for future" like under Romney. This is all information looking on a national level. Looking at a swing state like Florida, the data is pretty much the same, except for the fact that 18-29year olds sided more towards Obama when on a national level they were more sided toward Romney. I also found it peculiar when studying a republican North Carolina to a democratic Virginia because the males went more republican in Virginia but more democratic in North Carolina(same with females). Maybe they need to make a move!
By showing where and how much money the candidates spent on campaign ads, the Mad Money article clearly shows the effect the winner-takes-all system of the electoral college on presidential campaigns. They focus all of their time and money on the swing states, especially Florida with a total of $173 million spent on ads, and the rest of the states are almost completely ignored. Also in previous presidential elections, it seemed that the candidate that spent the most money generally won in the end, however this time around that was not the case, since Romney spent $88 million more than Obama but lost the election.
After studying the election results by state and the electoral college, I was wondering if the electoral college is necessarily a good way to run elections. If you look at the bottom of the diagram, Obama won with 50.6% of the popular vote and Romney lost with 47.8 of the popular vote. However, if you look at the top with the electoral votes, Obama won by 61.7% (332/538) and Romney lost with only 38.3% of the electoral votes. The results of the elecoral votes do not properly display the people's opinions about the president and may not effectively determine who the people want to be their president.
When looking at the state margins, it looks like Romney was over all more popular based on the number of deep red states and Obama had just gotten lucky with most of his states, winning only by a few percentages.
I feel like the electoral college is not an effective way of choosing a president based on the data given and congress/the states should begin to come up with a new way to choose a president, even if it means alot of work being put into the decision.
--Emily Sands
After analyzing the election results, it seemed as though Obama had won states with many electoral votes only by a small margin. There were only 5 states that were committed to Obama. On the other hand, Romney won states with deep commitment but states with few electoral votes. Electoral vote wise, Obama swamped Romney but popular vote over all Obama only won by 3%. This goes to show how the electoral college can disproportionately representing what the people as a whole want for president. I also liked how it showed last elections results and how Obama beat McCain with some satisfying numbers. However, this election was marginally close and it shows how many more people lost trust in Obama and decided to pick another option, but the electoral college system ensured Obama a solid win.
-Alex Brown
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In the exit poll article i followed it showed that really the American people trended to vote quite the same as in 2008. Some percentages had shifted, but really only 3 or 4 categories had changed and acouple of those were categories of people who are in more financial trouble, or greater poverty than they were 4 years ago.It was interesting to see at the end how most people saw Obama main characteristic being that he cared for people like them rather than being a strong leader. Also, the main issues of 2008 were the same main issues mentioned now which leads me to believe that little or nothing significant has been done towards these in the past 4 years.
The election results by state graphic showed a very interesting trend. Although Obama won by quite a lot of electoral votes, if you had looked just at the map, it seems that Romney would have won instead. I suppose then that one might infer that Americans live in very clustered areas, and even though the country looks majorly red, if we went by a population graphic, the country would be substantially blue instead.
I read the campaign spending link, and I was quite surprised with what I read. The first thing I noticed was the high percentage of negative attack ads used by both candidates. Its kind of sad really... they cant even focus on what they are actually going to do to help the country. Even with the millions of dollars spent on ads, I think that most people already knew who they were going to vote for, and all the ads did was annoy them. I also noticed that almost no money was spent on any states but the swing states. They are the only states that matter in the election.
There seems to be a trend with the last six presidents of alternating party when up for second re-election. This is backed up from evidence from the fourth link that mostly more people who used to support Obama voted Republican for Romney because they are unsatisfied by the unrealistic expectations they have for the government to provide everything for them. Leading me to believe that for the next election there will be a Republican in office because people want a new hero to fix all the problems of the world.
-Bryan Flanagan
I noticed based on the exit polls that Obama and Romney tended to have supporters that shared characteristics with themselves. Obama controlled the younger, minority population while Romney was supported by the older, white, male population. I think this shows that Americans are more likely to choose a president that resembles them personally. It is easier to project your own beliefs onto someone who reminds you, even subconsiously, of yourself, and to believe that they share more with you than just demographics. Perhaps many voters, especially voters who didn't pay much attention to the candidates' policies or plans, subconsiously allowed their decision for president to be swayed based on the reminder of the good feeling and trust that they feel towards the person they see when they look in a mirror.
-Hannah Tamminga
I find that the voting patterns in this election, as demonstrated in the graph showing shifts from 2008, mirror the greater political circumstances in which the U.S. finds itself right now. For example, the graphic shows that more people voted according to their party; Democrats more strongly supported Obama than before, and Republicans more strongly supported Romney than they did McCain. This result illustrates the political polarization that plagues this country and puts Congress at a frustrating standstill. The overall shift toward the Republican side is also a demonstration of America's lack of direction; our country is currently having trouble deciding how best to approach solving problems such as the economy, hence the two candidates having such similar shares of the vote. This election was about as far from a mandate as it could be; its closeness meant that it provided little indication of the wishes of the American people. The patterns displayed in the graphic show that America is stuck in between two sides and can't pick one, hence Obama being the first president to win reelection with fewer popular and electoral votes than he received the first time.
It's interesting to see that the results of the votes per state Obama vs Romney were closer than the last election. For instance, Florida was a guaranteed win for the democrats, but this election, the data was 50% - 49.1% democrats winning. Florida is not the only state that had close results. Minnesota is supposed to be dramatically democratic but this election the percentage got closer, 52.8%- 45.1%. Obama's percentage of votes is probably because of all the promises he made originally but didn't fulfill. These results are showing Obama and his cabinet that the voters were close to not giving him another chance, so for this term, voters are expecting to see some changes from Obama.
Kelli tobin
Spending for television campaign ads was substantial in the 2012 presidential election. Hundreds of millions were spent, mostly on negative ads. Whether the amount of money spent correlates with election results or not, it is a bit upsetting. While many people are currently unemployed and everyone worried about the state of the economy and U.S. debt, the huge amounts of money being thrown into the ads by the presidential campaign and allied parties seems unreasonable. And this is for a position that is meant to help the American people. The ads are annoying and normal people don’t like them. Too bad for Michigan and other critical states. For them the television ads started back in April. At this point one must wonder whether or not there are more worthy causes. Maybe if they had paid for the meals of a few thousand families they would have got more bang for their buck.
alex ness
Apparent in the tables of Link 4 is a general shift, however slight, in voter support towards the Republican Party since 2008. Nationally, men, women, liberals, moderates, and conservatives all shifted in leaning toward the Republican Party. This general movement likely can be largely attributed to disillusionment with the Obama Administration's relatively sparse accomplishments in comparison to the high expectations created by Mr. Obama's 2008 election. However, Mr. Obama did enjoy an increase in support from Hispanic voters, notable in that the Hispanic minority is growing rapidly in states that soon could begin to swing away from red towards blue (Texas, Arizona, etc).
Several of the major themes of the 2012 election manifest in the data presented. The state of government spending remained a central topic, as those who believed the country's financial situation had improved or maintained status quo made a huge swing toward Mr. Obama while those who thought otherwise made a beeline for Mr. Romney in the polls. The U.S. economy was similarly important to voters, as those who believed the country's economic condition was good threw the support behind Mr. Obama while those who disagreed got behind Mr. Romney. Finally, it appears that Mr. Romney never managed to connect with the "Average American": those voters who most valued a President who cares about them voted overwhelmingly for Mr. Obama.
-Alex Cheng
The amounts of money that were spent on this 2012 Presidential Campaign are by far the highest, including a record setting amount spent on Florida, mostly on negative campaign ads that many voters cease to pay attention to after they have been running for a week or so. The massive amounts of money that were used in this campaign were mostly fronted by corporations that were ruled as people by the Supreme Court in 2010, and allows them to donate directly to political campaigns without any restrictions that would normally apply. The amount of money that is being given to campaigns by corporations has the potential to massively sway campaigns, as well as push the possibility of corruption higher than it has since the early 1900's, when many of the measures that were stripped back by the Supreme Court in ruling Corporations as people were enacted. It will be interesting to see how the massive amounts of money that campaigns are donating to campaigns continues to increase.
Dean Allen
While the disparity between the republican and democratic vote nationwide did seem to decrease between 2008 and 2012, there was an even more surprising item of note in Indiana. A state that was slightly democratic, by 1% of the popular vote in 2008, is now overwhelmingly republican, by nearly 10% in 2012. Talk about change! However this could be due either specifically to McCain's lack of support in 2008 OR, and probably more likely, Indiana voters in general are beginning to become more conservative. The latter is most likely true, as with the presidential election results there is evidence showing that Indiana is well on its way to become situated in right field.
-Bryce Fenlon
Obama won the election again this year, but he did not turn out as popular as he was in the 2008 election. In fact, Obama support from women and unmarried men had decreased. Usually we see that the runner with the most money spent on the campaign wins, but in this last election Romney had spent more money on ads then Obama. It shows that Romney spent about 6% more on attack ads more then Obama did. Maybe this means that the public is not attracted to negative ads.
Cassandra Curry
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