Romney’s Final Share Of The Vote? 47%

Sometimes, you just have to appreciate the irony:

Call it irony or call it coincidence: Mitt Romney’s share of the popular vote in the 2012 presidential race is very likely to be 47 percent.

Romney’s campaign, of course, was doomed in large part by comments made on a hidden camera in which he suggested that 47 percent of the country was so reliant on government services that those people would never vote for him.

The words ’47 percent’ came to define what was already evident: that Romney struggled to connect with lower- and middle-income voters and with groups such as Latinos. And in the end, it looks like 47 percent also just happens to be the share of the vote that Romney will get.

The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent noted a few days ago that Romney was flirting with 47 percent, and now it appears to be happening.

According to the latest numbers tallied by David Wasserman of the Cook Political Report, President Obama has expanded his share of the popular vote to 50.8 percent, while Romney has fallen to 47.49 percent.

By virtue of rounding, Romney’s share of the popular vote will be recorded here and elsewhere as 47 percent, so long as it doesn’t rise above 47.5 percent again.

Maybe he should put this election result in a binder.

FILED UNDER: 2012 Election, US Politics, , ,
Doug Mataconis
About Doug Mataconis
Doug Mataconis held a B.A. in Political Science from Rutgers University and J.D. from George Mason University School of Law. He joined the staff of OTB in May 2010 and contributed a staggering 16,483 posts before his retirement in January 2020. He passed far too young in July 2021.

Comments

  1. Bobo says:

    Beautiful

  2. stonetools says:

    Just when I thought I couldn’t stuff in another bite of schadenfreude…..

  3. Barfour says:

    Someone said that this is Karma, and it’s a bitch. I don’t know….

  4. Tsar Nicholas says:

    That is an amazing irony. You couldn’t have scripted it for a SNL-style political satire.

    There are others, however:

    – Obama receiving 50.8% of the national vote. That’s nearly identical to the share received in ’04 (gulp) by George W. Bush. Obviously that won’t be highlighted anywhere, however.

    – White women voting 56-42 for Romney. Obviously that would be perplexing news for “The View” and its audience.

    – Romney’s share of the black vote (7%) being less than half the level of black unemployment (14.3%), but Obama’s share of the white vote (39%) being more than five times the level of white unemployment (7.0%). Think about that one for a minute. Which of those two demographics is far more race-obsessed?

    But still Romney at 47% clearly wins the irony award. Probably for all time.

  5. jukeboxgrad says:

    Someone said that this is Karma, and it’s a bitch.

    That reminds me of this:

    Mitt’s Dogma is strapped to the roof of his Karma.

    doug:

    Maybe he should put this election result in a binder.

    Or strap it to the roof of his car and drive to Canada.

  6. gVOR08 says:

    @Tsar Nicholas: You were doing good ’til the black vote thing. That’s pretty strained. Someone suggested that for political purposes we regard southern whites as a separate ethnicity. Politics makes much more sense that way. Obama got IIRC 45+% of the northern and western white vote, a loss, but narrow. He got something like 25% of the southern white vote. You were saying something about race obsessed?

  7. jukeboxgrad says:

    tsar:

    Obama receiving 50.8% of the national vote. That’s nearly identical to the share received in ’04 (gulp) by George W. Bush.

    More like 50.9%. These are the exact numbers, as of now:

    Bush 2004: 50.73%
    Obama 2012: 50.86%

    Pretty close, but the other numbers are not so close. Let’s review some numbers, comparing 2004 and 2012:

    Popular vote margin, percent
    2004 2.46%
    2012 3.43% (Last time any R won with a bigger margin: 1988.)

    Popular vote margin, number of votes
    2004 3.0 million
    2012 4.4 million

    Electoral vote margin
    2004 35
    2012 126

    Number of votes for the winner
    2004 62.0 million
    2012 64.8 million

    The counting isn’t done, and all the Obama numbers are going to get stronger.

  8. An Interested Party says:

    – Obama receiving 50.8% of the national vote. That’s nearly identical to the share received in ’04 (gulp) by George W. Bush. Obviously that won’t be highlighted anywhere, however.

    As noted above, the President’s numbers will probably increase from this, but even if not, there is nothing particularly amazing about this, so it really doesn’t need to be highlighted…

    – White women voting 56-42 for Romney. Obviously that would be perplexing news for “The View” and its audience.

    The internals on that would be fascinating…like, how much of that 56% is from white women in the South…that wouldn’t perplex “The View” and it’s audience at all…

    – Romney’s share of the black vote (7%) being less than half the level of black unemployment (14.3%), but Obama’s share of the white vote (39%) being more than five times the level of white unemployment (7.0%). Think about that one for a minute. Which of those two demographics is far more race-obsessed?

    You can try to spin it any way you want, but the reason that blacks overwhelmingly support Democrats is not because of their ethnic background but because the GOP is poison to blacks, as well as just about every other minority group…why don’t you think about that for more than a minute…

    Meanwhile, when will Republicans learn? In 2008 they picked the “maverick” candidate who desperately tried to show how much of a maverick he was by picking an airhead from Alaska as his running mate and then this year, in the wake of a devastating financial crisis caused, in part, by Wall Street vultures, they picked a vulture capitalist who was so easy to link to those Wall Street types…

  9. C. Clavin says:

    Nearly 60% of Obamas electorate was white. That puts the lie to Tsar’s racist theories.

  10. jukeboxgrad says:

    gVOR08:

    He got something like 25% of the southern white vote.

    It’s eye-opening to notice the parts of the country where Kerry (2004) did significantly better than Obama (2008). (And I’m sure these are also places where Obama did poorly this year.) Think about what that means, and then take a look at the map. Link.

    The GOP is the party of the Confederacy.

  11. michael reynolds says:

    I like to point out that Mr. Obama’s popular vote edge is greater than the total combined population of 5 ‘red’ states: Wyoming, North Dakota, Alaska, South Dakota and Montana, with a bit of Idaho thrown in.

  12. C. Clavin says:

    There are a hundred ways to slice this pie.
    Somewhere else I read today that Obama cleaned house in the 30 and under demographic.
    The bottom line is that Obama’s electorate looked a lot more like America Romney’s did.
    Republicans have a choice…accept America as it really is…or keep hoping it changes back to the 50’s.

  13. jukeboxgrad says:

    keep hoping it changes back to the 50′s.

    Sometimes it seems they are nostalgic for the 1950s, but I think they’re even more nostalgic for the 1850s.

  14. HarvardLaw92 says:

    Romney’s campaign was put to death in the primaries. He never recovered from the out there positions he took in order to get the nomination.

  15. HarvardLaw92 says:

    Please release my last comment. Thanks

  16. Just 'nutha ig'rant cracker says:

    @gVOR08: So when is Tsar moving from Cali to Selma?

  17. bill says:

    irony would be if he got 53% of the vote, i’d think.

  18. PogueMahone says:

    Is this what they call “Poetic Justice”?

  19. mattb says:

    @bill:

    irony would be if he got 53% of the vote, i’d think.

    Me thinks you don’t completely understand the concept of “irony.”

  20. Brummagem Joe says:

    Given where the counting is still to be done it’s going to be 47% rounded and Obama might just hit 51% on the nose but he’s 51% rounded. Happily this election has borne out perfectly my theory on the Republican max vote of around 60 million. This is the third presidential where the Republican number win or lose has been around 60 million. All Dems have to do to win presidential elections given the EC is turn out somewhat over 60 million and given their ceiling is around 71 million this is eminently doable.

  21. Brummagem Joe says:

    He

  22. jukeboxgrad says:

    I posted some numbers above. Here is an updated version. From here.

    Popular vote
    Bush 2004: 50.73%
    Obama 2012: 50.86% (Update: 50.9%)

    Popular vote margin
    2004 2.46%
    2012 3.43% (Update: 3.53%)

    Popular vote margin, number of votes
    2004 3.0 million
    2012 4.4 million (Update: 4.5 million)

    Number of votes for the winner
    2004 62.0 million
    2012 64.8 million (Update: 65.1 million)

    I think the counting is still not done, so the Obama numbers are going to improve further (because votes are still being counted in places like CA and NY).

  23. wise voter says:

    I personally don’t endorse either party at all, but I just couldn’t stand Romney at all. Here is someone that was shocked at the coach section of a plane with the seats being so small. This character regards you, me, and everyone not a millionaire as sludge and less than peons. He is a spolied brat that didn’t get his way and is pouting. He has absolutely no loyalty to his party as his comments only make the GOP make that much worse in future elections. The Republicans are jumping the good ship romney like rats off a sinking ship. It is disgusting when anyone turns on those that were in their corner, especially someone that was as crappy of a candidate as he was.

    I hope IRONY comes up through the rest of his sheltered little Lord Flauntingroy life. I hope people continue to remind him of the two numbers most agonizing to him, 47 and 206, the number of electoral votes he was lucky to get. 47,47,47,47, 47,………….. 206,206,206,206, 206………………… chant it loud whenever R’money (not misspelled), is slithering around and remind him that there is some poetic justice left in the world.