At the end of polling on Tuesday, incumbent President Barack Obama was declared the winner of the election with 303 electoral votes to Gov. Romney’s 206. Obama also won 50 percent of the popular vote, while Romney captured 48 percent.
Rob Mellen, assistant professor of political science, said these results closely match the predictions made by political science professors across the country.
“Most everything went exactly as political science professors expected,” he said.
Mellen said the race was expected to be close, and those forecasting the results knew the race would hinge upon certain key states.
“We knew the popular vote would be within one to two points, and we predicted that Obama would win 300 to 330 electoral votes,” he said.
Mellen also said the outcome of the election represents a triumph in the use of mathematical modeling based on known factors such as the state of the economy, unemployment rate, weighted averages from polls and changes in Gross Domestic Product.
“What happened yesterday was a victory for political science and forecasting models,” he said. “The models were pretty stable all year leading up to the election.”
Nate Silver, noted statistician and poll analyst for The New York Times, used data analysis to model the projected outcome of the election on his blog, FiveThirtyEight.
Silver predicted 50 of 50 states correctly and predicted close to the actual percentages in each state, and two university-affiliated statisticians achieved extremely similar results, according to Bloomberg Businessweek.
Mellen said Obama’s strategy to motivate and mobilize eligible voters, was critical in his path to victory.
“The Democrats out-organized the Republicans,” he said. “Obama had a strong grassroots movement in 2008. Here, he was able to rely on the same people again.”
After the election, USA Todayquoted Obama adviser David Plouffe as saying the Obama campaign’s organization was even better than it was during the 2008 election.
“We had a good organization in ’08,” he said. “This organization is light-years ahead of that.”
Mellen said another key facet of the election was Obama’s ability to define Gov. Romney before Gov. Romney could define himself.
“The Obama campaign spent a large chunk of money on the swing states early on,” he said. “The strategy was a gamble, and it worked.”
Mellen said the Obama campaign ran a plethora of advertisements which cast dark shadows over Romney’s roles as CEO of Bain Capital and President of the Organizing Committee of the 2002 Olympic Games, as well as conflicting statements Romney made during the 2008 presidential campaign.
Shaleasha Cunningham, senior communication major, said she was relieved to see Obama win on Tuesday.
“I’m happy that he won. I was worried, but I’m glad about the result,” she said.
Willie Copeland, junior kinesiology major, said he was unaffected by the presidential race.
“I don’t care either way,” he said.
Andrew Prather, junior biological engineering major, said he was somewhat surprised by the gap in electoral votes between Obama and Romney.
“It wasn’t as close as I thought it was going to be,” he said.
Mellen said although Mississippi is considered a solid red state, Obama fared better in Mississippi in 2012 than in 2008.
“Interestingly, more counties moved toward Obama this time,” he said.
The voting spread in Mississippi was only 11.7 percentage points in favor of the Republican ticket this year, as opposed to 13.2 points in 2008 and 19.7 points in 2004, according to poll averages from data aggregator RealClearPolitics.