Why the Confidence?

Almost 3 months ago I first blogged that Romney and the republicans seemed to be on the path to victory during the upcoming election.  The risk in early August was that so much could happen to change the trajectory from where I thought we were on.  As it turned out a lot did happen, but most of it benefited Romney.

What I saw then was that Romney had the trends in his favor.  He was slowly catching Obama in the early polls, and republicans seemed to be far more energized than democrats.  The polls were not showing Romney was even close, yet I was fairly confident that  he would eventually win.  What I saw then I still see. 

The polls are not a good barometer on who is ahead.  Polls are easily skewed because nobody, even the best pollster, knows who will show up to vote on election day.  We all know that most republicans vote for a republican, and democrats vote for democrats.  With that being true, it all comes down to turnout.  Which party will get more voters to vote on election day.  Each pollster can only make their best educated guess on turnout.  Back in early August, many pollsters were expecting a turnout that closely matched the turnout in 2008, when 7% more democrats voted than republicans.  There were more registered democrats than registered republicans in American, and the democrats were highly motivated to vote for Obama. This led to the 7% turnout advantage that ultimately led to Obama's victory.

The early 2012 polls continued to use a model that over sampled democrats by 7% when projecting the election.  This over sample consistently showed Obama in the lead. I didn't believe that democrats would turn out to vote at a 7% greater rate than republicans and still do not..  Republicans are far more motivated and excited to vote for Romney (or against Obama) than democrats are to vote for Obama.  A few of the polls are now factoring in the republican excitement into recent polls.  Hence, Romney is now tied or ahead of Obama in nearly every poll.

Even so, the pollsters still over sample democrats by a percentage, usually between 1%-7%.  Rasmussen seems to be the most thoughtful on the sample rate that will be most accurate in 2012.  Rasmussen believes the democrats will turn out at roughly a 3% higher rate even though his internal numbers indicate that republicans might turn out at nearly 3% higher rate.  What if republicans turn out at a higher rate?  The result would be a Romney landslide.

So which scenario do you think is more likely than the other?  I believe that republicans might turn out in higher numbers than democrats.  I believe the likelihood that democrats will turn out at a 7% greater rate is virtually impossible this year.  This is what I have based my prediction of a Romney win on.  Unskewedpolls.com is a site that shows what could happen if I am right.  They currently project Romney will win 54% of the popular votes and 359 electoral votes.  In these polarized days, that is a landslide.