Assuming that Florida delivers its 29 electoral votes to President Barack Obama, Drew Linzer of Votamatic, a website that posts forecasts and polling analysis, has called every state in the 2012 election correctly.
His final forecast, which was posted on Election Day at 7:29 a.m. PST, was spot on. Florida has yet to be called, but Obama holds a slight lead over Gov. Mitt Romney.
“With the last set of polls factored into the model, my final prediction is Obama to win 332 electoral votes, with 206 for Romney,” Linzer wrote. “This is both the median and the modal outcome in my electoral vote simulation, and corresponds to Obama winning all of his 2008 states except Indiana and North Carolina.”
Sure enough, the electoral outcome of the 2012 election was just that: Obama with 332, Romney with 206.
The New York Times’s Nate Silver gave President Barack Obama a 73.6 percent chance of winning re-election. On his blog, FiveThirtyEight, named for the total number of electoral votes, Silver correctly called the winner in 49 states and the District of Columbia (with Florida still yet to be called).
Other statisticians were close in their predictions, but some missed the mark badly. Joe Scarborough, on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” forecasted a win for Romney in Florida, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia, plus New Hampshire and/or Iowa, coming to a total of 270 to 276 electoral votes.
Republican strategist Karl Rove of Fox News predicted an electoral college win for Romney, 285 to 253.
Conservative pundit Jesse Merkel, underscoring Republican enthusiasm, forecasted a Romney landslide, 325 to 213, incorrectly predicting Romney wins in the same states Rove did, plus Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Minnesota.