The Homa Files

A reliable source tells me that the CBS report  Romney “shellshocked” by loss is pretty much on the money …

The essence of the article:

• The campaign was highly confident of victory … in part, because of the huge rally crowds in final days
• Their internal polling showed them leading in key states … largely driven by turnout assumptions
• They believed intellectually that Obama would not get the kind of turnout he had in 2008.
• They thought intensity and enthusiasm were on their side this time – poll after poll showed Republicans were more motivated to vote than Democrats
• Romney didn’t have a prepared concession speech … he was confident
• At the time, prelim exit polls didn’t signal a problem … looking back, there were some signs, e.g. Northern VA turnouts
• Shock hit when actual returns started coming in … North Carolina was the canary in the coal mine.

= = = = =
“Team Romney made three key miscalculations, in part because this race bucked historical trends”:

1. Turnout. They expected it to be between 2004 and 2008 levels, with a plus-2 or plus-3 Democratic electorate, instead of plus-7 as it was in 2008. Their assumptions were wrong on both sides:

• The president’s base turned out and Romney’s did not.
• More African-Americans voted in Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina and Florida than in 2008.
• And fewer Republicans did: Romney got just over 2 million fewer votes than John McCain.

2. Independents. State polls showed Romney winning big among independents.

• Historically, any candidate polling that well among independents wins.
• But as it turned out, many of those independents were former Republicans who now self-identify as independents.
• The state polls weren’t oversampling Democrats and undersampling Republicans – there just weren’t as many Republicans this time because they were calling themselves independents.

3. Undecided voters.  Romney was counting on that trend to continue. Instead, exit polls show Mr. Obama won among people who made up their minds on Election Day and in the few days before the election.

• The perception is they always break for the challenger, since people know the incumbent and would have decided already if they were backing him.
• But. maybe Romney, after running for six years, was in the same position as the incumbent.

This entry was posted on November 9, 2012 at 7:25 am and is filed under 2012 Campaign, 2012 Campaign - Marketing Lessons. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.