Romney still faces uphill fight to win White House
The former Massachusetts governor may have the Republican nomination sewn up, but speculators in markets set up by Intrade and the Iowa Electronic Markets don't see much change in his chances of winning.
The good news for Mitt Romney is that nobody expects him to lose the Republican nomination for president.The bad news for Mitt Romney is that the near certainty of his nomination isn't helping how investors in futures based on the election view his chances. They think he's got a big selling job ahead.
Trading on the election on Intrade.com, the Irish trading site that lets you take positions for or against just about everything, gives Romney only a 37% chance of winning the election. That's down slightly from the last time we looked at Intrade's trading trends.
President Obama has a 60.3% change of winning re-election. That probability has changed little in the last six weeks.
Former Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., who has vowed to stay in the primary campaign, has a 1% chance of winning the Republication nomination and a 0.3% chance of winning the presidency.
What's pushing the odds lower for Romney may well be that a huge gender gap has opened up over his candidacy.
In 12 swing states -- Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin -- included in a Gallup/USA Today survey, Obama leads Romney 51% to 42%.
In mid-February, Obama took less than half of the vote from women under 50 years old. Now he wins more than 60% of them. (Obama is ahead of Romney among all women by 18 points.)
That rapid consolidation of women behind Obama, the Washington Post said today, "seems directly attributable to the focus in the Republican presidential primary on contraception and other reproductive-rights issues during the past six weeks or so."
A number of party leaders have thrown up their hands in frustration — insisting that the candidates should be spending all their time talking about the economy.
Intrade runs what it calls "predictive" markets, letting investors speculate on the outcomes of any number of possible events. If you buy shares in an Obama win, you'll be paying $6 or so. There is always someone else on the other side of the trade. If Obama wins, you get $10. If he doesn't, you get nothing.
The Iowa Electronic Markets system, which also lets you speculate on the election, sees the Democrat, i.e., Obama, taking 52.6% of the popular vote, with a 60% chance of winning the popular vote. The Iowa system only looks at the popular vote.
Do I detect hatoraid here?
Pubs doing it to themselves. You can't keep bringing up social issues (especially long fought womens issues, like abortion, birth control, etc) and hope to win. You lose women, you lose the election. Period.
Of course, they can thank Ricky rick for that. If they want to win, they have to stay focused on 3 things, economy, deficit, taxes. Straying into social issues they will lose every single swing state doing that.
insisting that the candidates should be spending all their time talking about the economy,
If politicians on both sides of the of the political spectrum haven't heard what Main Street has been screaming about since the start of the Great Recession .. there may be some new faces in Washington this coming winter.
I am a 30 year member of the Republican Party who finally understands that with less government in our lives as a cornerstone of our party; we (Republicans) have yet earned the right to gain the added benefits that go along with a less regulated private sector. Until we live by examples that don’t put added burdens upon society such as failures in Wall Street, constant schemes to provide 2% of our society with more than 80% of our countries net wealth, I can’t ask others to carry the burden. I now fully understand that we are a government of the people, by the people, and by asking for less government, we are essentially asking for a government (our people) to make decisions based on just a few people in the private sector who make up the majority of the 2% that have added so much to our present problems. Therefore, I will always put the will of the majority before my personal gain, especially if I know that my gain will only be made on the backs of others, to the detriment of the majority in society. Anything less is simply an immoral act in the face of God.
Whether Romney can win or not remains to be seen. I'd bet a dollar to a doughnut that the better odds are BO self destructing. Go the wrong way with Israel, keep ticking off religious organizations. Gasoline at 6-$7.00 a gallon. Sorry, he's on the wrong side of too many folks right now. Is Romney better than BO? A lot of folks will say anybody is.
It's gonna take a lot more than that.
Economy has to fold hard.
Don't get me wrong, Romney could win, but it's unlikely. Religion just isn't that important to people these days, neither is Isreal. Gas is important, but it doesn't actually move votes.
As it is in the general POTUS election, Romney has to win the Red Leaning States, and 70% of the swing votes. He only leads Iowa, Missouri currently.
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