Nate Silver got one thing wrong: Ohio wasn't the tipping point state--Colorado was.

[geek tragedy]

The tipping point state is the state that puts the winner over the top. Not in time, but in closeness of the vote. You essentially count your safest states first--Hawaii, Vermont, D.C., New York etc until you get to 270. Everything closer than the tipping point state is padding for the lead.

Per the WaPo, the closest states were:

1. Florida: 0.6 percent (Obama 49.9, Romney 49.3.)

2. Ohio: 1.9 percent (Obama 50.1, Romney 48.2)

3. North Carolina: 2.2 percent (Romney 50.6, Obama 48.4)

4. Virginia (99% reporting): 3.0 percent (Obama 50.8, Romney 47.8)

5. Colorado: 4.7 percent (Obama 51.2, Romney 46.5)

6. Pennsylvania (99% reporting): 5.2 percent (Obama 52, Romney 46.8)

7. Iowa: 5.6 percent (Obama 52.1, Romney 46.5)

8. New Hampshire (99% reporting): 5.8 percent (Obama 52.2, Romney 46.4)

9. Nevada (99% reporting): 6.6 percent (Obama 52.3, Romney 45.7)

10. Wisconsin: 6.7 percent (Obama 52.8, Romney 46.1

The Obama states not close enough to make this list awarded him 217 Electoral Votes (Hawaii through Michigan).

Wisconsin brings the total to 227, Nevada makes 233, New Hampshire makes it 237, Iowa makes it 243, Pennsylvania (closer than many battleground states) made it 263.

And the state that put him over the top? Colorado, with 9 Electoral Votes, put him at 272. Virginia made it 285.

Ohio and Florida were the two narrowest wins. Conversely, Silver's model ranked the states in likelihood of being the tipping point:

Ohio: 49.8%
Virginia: 12.3%
Nevada: 9.9%
Iowa: 6.6%
Colorado: 6.4%

What does this tell us? That Ohio wound up being a heck of a lot closer than the public polling suggested. Similarly, Pennsylvania was much closer than the public polls suggested while Wisconsin, Nevada, Colorado, New Hampshire and even Virginia saw Obama with wider leads than projected.

[fizzgig]

1. i love my state

colorado has changed so much in the last 12 years.

[Cha]

31. I love your state, too. I was born there many

moons ago. From Hawai'i

[fizzgig]

35. aloha

[Cha]

36. Aloha

[bama_blue_dot]

2. Great analysis..

That would seem that the dirty tricks both states were pulling worked.. Just not enough..

[geek tragedy]

4. The provisionals in Ohio could tilt it further--I'd bet serious money that when they get

counted next week there are more Obama votes than Romney votes in there (which is why Husted was trying to get as many thrown out as possible).

It's also possible that the polls just overstated his lead there--they missed in other states too in both directions.

Ohio typically leans 1-3 points to the right of the nation. So, if Obama won by 2.5-3%, it somewhat makes sense that he'd have a 1-2% win there.

[november3rd]

20. Didn't need FL, OH, VA

How many people realize O wins without the "Big Three" even being needed in his column?

There were tons of provisionals in the PA section where I was watching the polls. 1 out of 10 registered voters was missing from the roll book and couldn't vote.

[JoePhilly]

3. The key I think is that Obama still "won" without OH, VA, or FL = MANDATE

[geek tragedy]

6. FL, VA, and OH are beachheads or forward territories.

We own major real estate in their historic electoral back yard.

Demographics in Ohio actually make it most likely for them to take back of the three--it's the least diverse of the three.

[JoePhilly]

13. Very true ... and VA will help turn NC again. Ohio and IL will turn IN again.

Florida and NC (Charlotte particularly) will help turn GA.

State borders are becoming more and more fluid. And as part of one state turns blue, it can start to influence the neighbors.

[geek tragedy]

15. I think in the future VA and NC will be more Democratic than Ohio will be.

Just a function of demographics.

[JoePhilly]

17. I can see that ...

I grew up in Philly, but I've been living in NC for the last 20 years.

And my wife and I have added 3 more Democrats to the state. And our oldest, 19, voted for Obama on Tuesday. The coast of NC has many environmentally oriented folks, Raleigh is very diverse, you have Chapel Hill and Durham with UNC and Duke, then Charlotte, Asheville ... the state is shifting ... even if the crazies made some progress this time.

I think we will see NC and VA move left in the next 2 decades.

[geek tragedy]

18. Same story as Virginia--African-Americans plus a growing group of college-educated whites

who have cultural ties to other parts of the country, universities, etc.

It'll probably be a swing state for quite some time.

[RosedaleGuy]

9. Exactly! We don't need Florida or Ohio anymore...

...that's a big fucking deal. Ohio and Florida have a lot of Republicans and each presidential election has always centered around them. Today we have Colorado, Iowa, Nevada and Wisconsin. If dems can strengthen their hold of these states the GOP will have a hard time winning another presidential election.

[JoePhilly]

14. And as noted above, OH, VA, and FL wins create a big issue for the GOP.

If those states become reliable DEM states ... the GOP, as it currently exists, is toast. Their immigration policies ALONE will kill them in the West. They lose OHIO, and VA, and FL too, their party is over.

[TTUBatfan2008]

23. The truly scary thing for them is when Texas ends up blue...

And it will happen sometime in the next 20-30 years unless they do a 180 on immigration policy.

[Panasonic]

5. TOLD YA SO!

I said we would deliver the EV needed to break 270!

Colorado rules!

[geek tragedy]

11. It was the Kerry states plus Iowa plus Latino-heavy states in the West.

Kerry states=251 Electoral votes.

Iowa makes it 257. Colorado plus Nevada makes it 272.

The real firewall is in the West, not the Midwest.

[Cha]

32. Did you? How Cool~

I had no idea

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

7. I was just about to say something close to this. I wonder if Ohio is any longer a bellweather

state. I think the new bellweather in NC or maybe CO.

[geek tragedy]

16. I think Iowa, Virginia and Colorado are good starting points. nt

[KamaAina]

8. Gee, I wonder why OH and PA might have been closer than we thought?

Got vote suppression?

[geek tragedy]

12. That's part of it. Also the fact that they didn't catch the rise in Latino

votes that other states caught.

[KamaAina]

19. PA actually should have

there are sizable Latino communities in eastern PA, especially Norristown (which accepts Mexican national ID) and Reading. And, of course, there's Hazleton, where the angry white males tried to stop landlords from renting to Latinos, er, I mean "undocumented people".

[november3rd]

21. Norristown

What do you mean that N-town "accepts Mexican national id?"

I grew up in Norristown, but haven't been back there in 30 years.

[KamaAina]

26. In the past three decades, it's become a Latino stronghold

http://citizendia.org/Norristown,_Pennsylvania

The local government accepts Mexican Matrícula Consular cards as valid identification, in an effort to prevent immigrants from being marginalized in the community or becoming the victim of criminals who know that the undocumented have no legal recourses.

[KamaAina]

10. We're breaking through in the Southwest, thanks to the Latino vote

New Mexico: Blue. Nevada: Blue. Colorado: Now Blue.

Arizona: Barry Bonds-size *. http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021759187

Utah: (sigh)

[kestrel91316]

22. Nevada put him over the top timewise. By that point, Ohio AND Florida AND

Virginia were completely moot.

[geek tragedy]

24. Nate Silver's analysis

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/08/as-nation-and-parties-change-republicans-are-at-an-electoral-college-disadvantage/

Now that the actual returns are in, we don’t need the simulations or the forecast model. It turned out, in fact, that although the FiveThirtyEight model had a very strong night over all on Tuesday, it was wrong about the identity of the tipping-point state. Based on the polls, it appeared that Ohio was the state most likely to win Mr. Obama his 270th electoral vote. Instead, it was Colorado that provided him with his win – the same state that did so in 2008.

The worry for Republicans is that Mr. Obama won Colorado by nearly five percentage points (4.7 points was his margin there, to the decimal place). In contrast, Mr. Obama’s margin in the national popular vote, as of this writing, is 2.4 percentage points. We estimate that it will grow to 2.5 percentage points once some remaining returns from states like Washington are accounted for, or perhaps slightly higher once provisional ballots in other states are counted. But it seems clear that Mr. Obama had some margin to spare in the Electoral College.

[outsideworld]

25. damn awesome

[davidpdx]

27. #3 the one that got away

NC loss by 2.2%. That's close. Still we can be happy we got close to a sweep of the swing states.

[AJH032]

28. I think Obama actually won Ohio by 4-6 points

But because of the extensive efforts to suppress the vote, and the provisional ballot crisis, Obama only ended up winning by about 2.

[Cha]

33. ol rove sure thought mitt had it.

[K-Matt]

29. The Great Republican State of Denial

certainly helped

[LisaL]

30. How does one put SOS Husted from OH into a model?

[cheezmaka]

34. the Election ended quick!

My eyes were "glued" to the tv watching OH and FL... Next thing you know, the President, gets 270! I'm asking myself, "Where did those electoral votes come from?"

[TroyD]

37. Some of the final polls (eg. PPP, SurveyUSA) said Obama would win by +5 in OH

Wonder what happened there?

Voter suppression?

Obama appears to only be about 2% ahead of Romney in Ohio.

By contrast, Virginia, a state which until 2008 hadn't voted Democratic since LBJ in 1964, gave Obama a 3% win over Romney, despite it being supposedly more conservative.