Obama / Romney in virtual polling tie

[edhopper]

separated by less than a percentage point.

https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/president/general/2012/obama-vs-romney

Obama won by 5 million votes and almost 130 EC votes.

And Romney wasn't an Orange faced, bloated criminal rapist.

[House of Roberts]

1. I remember that well.

Co-workers kept telling me Romney was going to win, because of this misleading polling, and I kept telling them I don't see it in the state by state polling. Romney needed just about all the swing states, and he wasn't even close in half of them.

[MissMillie]

5. Maybe some advantageous stuff coming our way too

Possible lowering of interest rates this summer.

And a conviction or two (of Mango Mussolini) may help to sway some independents.

[H2O Man]

2. Recommended.

Good call.

[All Mixed Up]

3. There's some significant differences...

1. Obama wasn't nearly as unpopular as Biden is currently. On this day in 2012, Obama's average approval was 47.2% and his disapproval 48%. Biden currently? His average approval is 40.6% and his disapproval 55.5%. It has not budged. On March 14, a month ago, Biden's average approval was 40.2 and his disapproval 55.5. In a month, Biden's approval has only gone up by not even a half of a point. His disapproval is literally unchanged. Two months ago? 40.3 and 56% approval/disapproval. In approval, Biden is doing 6.6 points worse than Obama, which isn't a significant difference but where he's killed is disapproval. Obama was barely under water here (.8 points) between breaking even with approval/disapproval. Biden is essentially 15 points underwater and he's doing seven-points worse than Obama in disapproval. Overall, Biden is doing 13.6 points worse than Obama in approval/disapproval.

2. The popular vote was close throughout 2012 but what wasn't close was the electoral college. Not only did Obama lead in most every poll in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin (a reversal for Biden), he was also leading in Iowa and Ohio (two states Biden won't likely win) and running competitive in Florida, which he would eventually win (a state Biden is down big right now and not likely to win).

Obama was far better positioned than Biden is right now. It doesn't mean Biden won't win - and he certainly has a much more favorable opponent than Romney (though Trump is much stronger than Romney in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan) - it just means 2012 is not a good comparison.

Biden is going to have to convince a good amount of those 55% who do not think he's doing a good job to vote for him.

On election day, Obama's disapproval was 47% on average. Surprise, that's how many people voted for Romney.

But it also shows how consistent Obama's approval was throughout 2012. Between this day in 2012 and election day, Obama's disapproval only improved by one-point. If that trend continues with Biden, he'll have a disapproval of 54% on election day - seven-points greater than Obama's.

[edhopper]

6. All true

But still this shows a virtual polling tie and a 4% real vote win.

[All Mixed Up]

8. Sure. But we don't elect presidents by popular vote.

Biden is doing significantly worse right now in polling in the swing states than Obama was even at the end of the election.

[Polybius]

12. If Biden were facing almost any other Republican, it would be bad news

He's really lucky that the SC didn't disqualify Trump. Trump is Biden's best path to victory.

[Sugarcoated]

13. Exactly

Romney wasn't a fascist monster, he didn't incite a coup when he lost.

[All Mixed Up]

14. Unfortunately, I agree.

I think the only advantage to not going up against Trump would be that Trump voters might sit the election out in protest and there's definitely a large amount of Trump voters who, prior to 2016, just didn't vote and don't vote in midterm elections too. That's my biggest concern about November: Trump has a very sizable amount of voters who might just crawl over glass to vote for him no matter what.

There's a poll by AP/NORC where Biden leads Trump 50-39 with voters who voted in 2018, 2020 and 2022.

But he trails 45-33 among voters who have only voted in one of those elections (my assumption would be 2020 is that one election).

Trump's in this race because of those voters.

With that said, in a landscape where Trump is not on the ballot, and it's someone else, Biden probably bleeds out support among moderates, especially if the candidate was someone like Haley.

Regardless, 2024 is going to be a very close election. I'm leaning on saying Biden is the favorite right now but that can change. He certainly didn't feel like the favorite a couple months ago.

[mucifer]

4. there wasn't this degree of brainwashing back then.

[edhopper]

7. Are you kidding

Or do you not remember thecTea Party.

[mucifer]

9. russia wasn't as involved. It's really bad now.

[edhopper]

10. This is true

[Polybius]

11. Obama was a generational speaker

There was no doubt in my mind that he would wind up winning in 2012. He was also substantially ahead in the polls almost all of 2012. It didn't get tight until late October. Obama's negatives were not bad either in 2012.

[All Mixed Up]

15. Obama also had rock solid support among Black voters.

He won 93% of Black voters in 2012. That dropped to 89% in 2016 with Hillary and 87% in 2020 with Biden.

The truth is that Obama had a strong base that he leaned on and it helped him in all the swing states.

That's one area Biden has struggled. He doesn't have a huge base of support to lean on. A lot of his support is almost universally tied to him just not being Trump. It was enough in 2020. We hope it's enough in 2024. But the 2020 exit polls were clear: 68% of Biden voters, when asked if their vote was for Biden or a vote against Trump, said their vote was against Trump. Conversely, only 30% of Trump voters said their vote was against Biden.