Latest Election Prediction

Reasons why Mitt Romney will lose to Barack Obama 357- 181 in the Electoral College this presidential election, barring an economic disaster between now and November:



1. Romney's a dud as a candidate - boring, insincere and he says stupid, out-of-touch things.


2. Christian conservatives will vote for Romney, but they won't campaign enthusiastically for a Mormon. An enthusiasm gap will favor Obama because women are pissed of at the GOP


3. The whole "Sandra Fluke is a slut" thing will come back to haunt the GOP in a big way, as will the punitive anti-abortion laws pushed by the Republican Psrty. Women will be a larger part of the electorate, and they are already a majority. They will vote for Obama in larger numbers than even in 2008.


4. Latino turnout will be larger than in the past. The ID laws and vicious anti-immigrant legislation written by the GOP will create an enormous Latino backlash.


5. Black people will still vote by a 92-8 margin or bigger for Obama and I predict a bigger black turnout because of the clear racism the GOP has shown Obama.


6. The GOP presidential primary gave a rich mine of damaging videotape the Obama campaign will exploit in a vast air campaign - Romney saying he likes to fire people, Romney saying how the many cars he owns are American made, his campaign staffer saying that Romney is like an Etch-a-Sketch, plus Romney's infinite number of flip flops in public. All this will kill Romney in swing states once ads start to run


7. The really dumb GOP propaganda - the "Obama is a secret Muslim," the "Obama will ban guns," and the "Obama is a foreign-born communist" memes -- have convinced the total idiots and no one else. No one is going to be converted by these arguments now and the unconverted will be turned off. Obama's been president for four years. We're not the Soviet Union and the President bailed out Wall Street. People who can walk and chew gum at the same time realize you can't be for Wall Street and for Karl Marx simultaneously

8. The GOP bench for the VP slot is weak and Romney will probably have to pick someone who is more conservative than he is to secure his unhappy base. This will turn off everyone else.


9. A lot of Republicans privately want Romney to lose so they can get this disaster out of the way and move on to the next heir apparent, like Jeb Bush.


10. Several states really hate their Republican governors - Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and Florida to name the most important in terms of Electoral votes - and the unpopularity of these governors means Romney will lose these states.

As it stands now, Obama will win not only the expected big states – New York, New Jersey, California, and Massachusetts, but he will almost sweep the Midwest – carrying Wisconsin, Ohio, Iowa and Michigan.  He’ll beat Romney in Pennsylvania, penetrate the once solid Republican South by capturing Virginia and North Carolina, heavily beat the Republican in the the Northwest, and prevail in the often decisive state of Florida.  A Republican has to win all of the old Confederacy and Ohio to have any chance of getting to the White House and I see no way the math works for Romney in this regard.  Basically, the GOP race for 2016 has already begun.

Michael Phillips has authored the following:

White Metropolis: Race, Ethnicity and Religion in Dallas, Texas, 1841-2001 (Austin:  University of Texas Press, 2006)

(with Patrick L. Cox) The House Will Come to Order: How the Texas Speaker Became a Power in State and National Politics. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2010)

“Why Is Big Tex Still a White Cowboy? Race, Gender, and the ‘Other Texans’” in Walter Buenger and Arnoldo de León, eds., Beyond Texas Through Time: Breaking Away From Past Interpretations (College Station: Texas A&M Press, 2011)

“The Current is Stronger’: Images of Racial Oppression and Resistance in North Texas Black Art During the 1920s and 1930s ”  in Bruce A. Glasrud and Cary D. Wintz, eds., The Harlem Renaissance in the West: The New Negroes’ Western Experience (New York: Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group, 2011)

“Dallas, 1989-2011,” in Richardson Dilworth, ed. Cities in American Political History (Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2011)

(With John Anthony Moretta, Keith J. Volonto, Austin Allen, Doug Cantrell and Norwood Andrews), Keith J. Volonto and Michael Phillips. eds., The American Challenge: A New History of the United States, Volume I.   (Wheaton, Il.: Abigail Press, 2012).

(With John Anthony Moretta and Keith J. Volanto), Keith J. Volonto and Michael Phillips, eds., The American Challenge: A New History of the United States, Volume II. (Wheaton, Il.: Abigail Press, 2012).

(With John Anthony Moretta and Carl J. Luna), Imperial Presidents: The Rise of Executive Power from Roosevelt to Obama  (Wheaton, Il.: Abigail Press, 2013). 

“Texan by Color: The Racialization of the Lone Star State,” in David Cullen and Kyle Wilkison, eds., The Radical Origins of the Texas Right (College Station: University of Texas Press, 2013).

He is currently collaborating, with longtime journalist Betsy Friauf, on a history of African American culture, politics and black intellectuals in the Lone Star State called God Carved in Night: Black Intellectuals in Texas and the World They Made.