# 36 First of Two Parts: Rasmussen and RPW

This will be a longer post than usual, but it’s my first “Personal Poll Post,” and I want to set up my initial poll numbers.

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Greetings Good People – I am sharing the Rasmussen Electoral Projections, one of the country’s most conservative polls, and with which I have a major disagreement.  The Rasmussen electoral map itself wouldn’t transfer, so I’ll use my thousand words instead of the picture and try to work it out for future posts.   Here’s the Rasmussen Electoral College summary:

Rasmussen Reports--Electoral College Breakdown:

Safe Romney      167        Safe Obama        172

Likely Romney      21       Likely Obama        28

Leans Romney     47        Leans Obama       37

                              Toss-up       66

Electoral College

Obama: 237 - Romney: 235 - Toss-up: 66

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My electoral college totals, while only slightly different numerically, are vastly different in their significance: BEFORE the battleground states, I have Obama (solid and Leaning) with more than the required 270.  And he has a decent chance to take some of the 72 “Too Close to Call” votes.

 Please note that I include Ohio not as a “Too Close to Call” state but as “Leaning” toward Obama, and its 18 electoral votes are part of the 275 I project for Obama at this time.  If I’m wrong, then Obama would not have the 270 votes yet. However, unless there is real fraud in the machines in Ohio (not a small possibility, unfortunately), I cannot see Ohio going for Romney.

Note too that I am not including the possibility that Maine and Nebraska might award a vote to the candidate who wins a particular electoral district but not the rest of the state; if that happens (Maine might award one electoral vote to Romney, and/or Nebraska might award one electoral vote to Obama), my projections indicate that it won't affect the outcome.

Other points of interest: as a result of the 2010 Census, Texas has gained 4 electoral votes; New York and Ohio have each lost 2; Iowa, New Jersey and Pennsylsvania have lost 1 each.  Overall, 2008 Red states have netted more than a dozen additional electoral votes.  Despite that fact, I still have Obama currently with enough “safe” electoral votes to win.

Turnabout’s fair play: it is possible, in a reverse of the 2000 election that Romney might win the popular vote, but lose the electoral vote.  The Red states might just turn out more Romney voters proportionately than the Blue states turn out Obama supporters.  But I still cannot believe that women – any women – will vote for the Republicans, but apparently some will.  Same goes for seniors.  A recent poll showed that Romney is winning strongly among “white males without a college degree.”  Apparently, Bubba lives.