In a recent posting on his New York Times blog fivethirtyeight, Nate Silver differentiates between “swing states,” which conventional wisdom has described North Carolina as being, and “elastic states,” which Silver believes is a better descriptor.
As a political scientist, I am sort of a “number cruncher” who likes to empirically test what we know about human behavior through statistical analysis. With the election results certified by the N.C. Secretary of State, I ran some statistical analyses on the county-wide results to see what, if anything, might explain things from the May primary.
Gallup Polling released a great set of data on their weekly tracking of the presidential race, with a 46-46 tie between the Democrat and Republican. For the most part, it tracks with what other polls are saying about the Obama-Romney contest: with five months to go, it’s pretty much tied up with very few folks undecided.
In my previous post, I wrote about the failure of Americans Elect to secure a candidate for their third party attempt at the 2012 elections. Along with the formal rules of the game, Americans Elect apparently could not get over its own rules: The viability of candidates to win the group’s primary process.
I was sitting in my office reading the news that third-party Americans Elect failed to secure a viable candidate when I got an e-mail from Julie Rose of WFAE, hoping for some insight on the issue.
In my last two postings, “Pebbles” posed some interesting questions about the May primary election that I thought would make for some good feedback and responses:
Pebbles: “I’d be interested to know if the counties that voted against the amendment have more registered Democrats, Republicans, or Independents.”
