Why Overturning the Mandate Could Benefit Obama

If you are a normal person, you probably just looked at this headline with deep skepticism.  After all, what could possibly be more damaging to President Obama’s re-election hopes than the Supreme Court ruling that the Individual Mandate is unconstitutional?

As it turns out, quite a lot.  The economy could go into a recession.  Israel could attack North Korea.  Gas prices could shoot to $6 a gallon.  Plenty of things could go wrong between now and November.  It could turn out that a ruling against Obamacare might not be all that bad, at least politically. 

Enthusiasm

To begin, if you have watched any of the GOP debates this cycle, you’ll probably notice that the issue the candidates campaigned on most (besides perhaps the economy) is President Obama’s health care reform.  Republican voters loathe the bill, and that one issue alone is enough for them to hold their nose to vote for Mr. Romney. 

But what happens if the GOP’s primary motivation to vote is suddenly taken away? If the court strikes down the individual mandate, why do Republican voters need to elect someone who has spent the last year campaigning to repeal it? 

Of course, I am not saying that GOP voters will stay home in November.  However, without the rally-cry that is the individual mandate, it is fair to say that the enthusiasm for electing Mr. Romney (which is already quite low for a presumed Presidential Nominee) would certainly decline. 

Enthusiasm is what gets supporters to canvass for the candidate, make phone calls, and above all, get out the vote efforts.  A drop in enthusiasm for a candidate (or party) can mean the difference of a couple percentage points at the polls (as witnessed among core groups of President Obama’s constituency during the midterm election). 

Further, if the Court were to strike down the individual mandate, liberal groups could become more enthusiastic towards re-electing the President.  After all, if the individual mandate is struck down, it is extremely unlikely that universal health care, a dream of liberals for generations, would ever become reality.

Republicans Would Own Health Care

As James Carville recently (and brilliantly) pointed out, if the conservative majority of the Supreme Court strikes down the heart of Obamacare, conservatives would then “own” the issue.  Therefore, if costs and premiums continue to increase, as more and more people are uninsured, the Democrats can (unfairly or not) easily blame the Republicans. 

Will costs and number of uninsured rise?  Probably, judging by the trend-line.  Would they have risen if the Affordable Care Act had survived?  It doesn’t matter.  Counterfactuals rarely influence perceptions in politics.  People will be caring about what is happening at the present, and they will be looking for someone to blame. 

The Mandate is Unpopular

The individual mandate is by far the most unpopular part of President Obama’s health care reform bill.  In fact, most other parts of the bill are widely popular among the electorate. 

President Obama, after spending a year trying to pass the bill certainly couldn’t now come out against the individual mandate… but the Supreme Court can.  If this were to happen, the President could spend his time campaigning on the remaining part of the bill that is popular.

The Market May React Favorably

One of the biggest claims conservatives have made over the past two years is that businesses aren’t hiring because of “uncertainty” due to Obamacare and them having to cover all their employees.  If that argument is true, then overturning the ACA should spur an increase in hiring among businesses, particularly small businesses. 

Everybody knows the election will be decided based mainly on the shape of the economy come election day.  The past 4 months have produced high job growth, which has inflated President Obama’s job approval ratings.  If businesses were to begin hiring in mass, the economy could grow beyond economists’ current expectations while simultaneously lowering the unemployment rate. 

As Nate Silver pointed out on his blog, if job growth were to remain constant or even increased from where it currently stands, President Obama would be a heavy favorite to win in November.

Conclusion

This is not all to say that overturning the mandate will only positively affect Mr. Obama.  If it is overturned, President Obama will surely be bludgeoned for spending much of his first year passing a law that turned out to be unconstitutional.  However, it is not all doom and gloom for the President.  Politically, it’s just quite possible that the President could win if he loses.

All Eyes on Illinois

Illinois hasn’t had a true say in the GOP primary since 1988, and often times, candidates won’t even visit the state unless they have a high-dollar fundraiser in Chicago.  All of that is about to change.  Coming fresh off his double wins in the southern states of Mississippi and Alabama, Rick Santorum is planning on making a real play for Illinois in what is shaping up to be the most important contest since Ohio and before then, Michigan (both of which Romney barely won). 

Most of the original assumptions were that Illinois would be an easy win for Romney.  After all, in general elections at least, Illinois is a reliably ‘blue’ state, something that typically favors Mr. Romney.  However, in this state, the geography is of critical importance to understanding where the Republican votes actually come. 

Approximately 19.85% of the Republican votes statewide in 2010 came from Cook County (Chicago).  This area just so happens to be a demographic and geographic sweet-spot for Mitt Romney.  As Nate Silver over at Fivethirtyeight has pointed out, Romney has done much better in more urban and densely populated areas than his opponents.  Therefore, just as the Democrats do in the general election, Mr. Romney will be doing his best to maximize his results in Cook so he has a greater margin that he can lose by in the downstate counties. 

However, Mr. Romney cannot simply ignore downstate.  There are not enough Republican voters in the Chicago area for him to pull out a victory by simply relying on those votes.  Typically, central Illinois and parts of southern Illinois are very culturally conservative, and as election results from 2008 will show, Mr. Romney did better in the west-central part of the state whereas Mr. Huckabee did better in the south.

These results may be deceiving, however.  In 2008, John McCain had the nomination virtually wrapped up, and Illinois was certainly not a state that would be voting against the establishment-backed, assumed nominee.  After all, Illinois is not a tea-party state by any means.  By comparing the conservative ratings of the Republican congressmen and women before and after the 2010 elections, it showed that the Illinois GOP remained exactly at moderately conservative. 

Illinois assumed disposition towards establishment candidates, then, would seem to be a very big plus for Mitt Romney, who is overwhelmingly favored by the Republican establishment.  However, central and southern Illinois are very socially conservative areas, and Mr. Romney is certainly viewed with skepticism on his social-conservative bona fides.  In fact, in 2008, when Mr. Romney and Mr. Huckabee were not backed by most of the establishment, their combined vote often beat Mr. McCain’s, as shown below. 

In dark red are the counties that the combined vote of Romney and Huckabee were greater than John McCain’s.  The green dots represent the population count in each county of registered voters.   As we can see, McCain, despite being the assumed nominee at this point in the election cycle, did relatively poorly in central and southern Illinois.   We can therefore conclude that, given a strong a conservative and anti-establishment challenger, it is very possible for Mr. Romney to be defeated in Illinois. 

How possible?  Let’s find out.  To begin, we know that Ron Paul will not win, but that he will draw a significant portion of the vote.  To approximate Paul’s vote share, I looked at his performances in other states relative to 2008.  This is what I found:

	MI	OH	IA	MO	Weighted AVE
2008	6.27	4.65	9.93	4.5
2012	11.62	9.2	21.43	12.2
% change	85.3	97.8	115.8	171.1	108.85%

What we can observe from the start is that Ron Paul does much better, even relative to his 2008 numbers, in caucus states such as Iowa and Missouri.  Therefore, because Illinois is a primary and not a caucus, I gave a stronger weight to the results from Michigan and Ohio (also, they have been most recent).  Doing this resulted in an average of a positive 108.85% change in vote share over his 2008 numbers.  Applying this percent increase to Dr. Paul’s vote share from 2008, we can project that he will end up with approximately 10.44% of the vote. 

Moving on, barring some unforeseen event, we can assume that Mr. Gingrich will not be winning Illinois.  However, like Ron Paul, he will still draw a significant portion of the vote from the total, leaving the vote-share-to-win at a much lower level.  To approximate Mr. Gingrich’s share of the vote, I again tallied his votes in the surrounding Midwestern states and weighted the primaries.

	MI	OH	IA	MO	Weighted AVE
Gingrich	6.5	14.6	13.3	-	11.1

Newt Gingrich will be expected to get about 11.1% of the vote.  However, as a bit of caution, I should note that Mr. Gingrich’s approximated vote share is much more volatile that Dr. Paul’s.  Ron Paul has a very committed, unwavering group of supporters; Newt Gingrich does not.  It is very likely that after Mr. Gingrich losing both of the southern states this week and with repeated and increased calls from the GOP establishment for him to exit the race, he could see his vote share decrease from the projected value. 

Totaling Ron Paul’s and Newt Gingrich’s projected vote share, I get a combined 21.54%.  This will leave 78.46% of the vote to still be fought for by the Romney and Santorum campaigns, meaning the winner would need 39.24%.  Again looking at the 2008 Illinois primary, I mapped the counties in which John McCain did and did not secure 39.24% of the vote.  The result was somewhat shocking. 

In dark red are the counties in which John McCain did not receive at least 39.24% of the vote.  Again, this happened mainly in the south and central Illinois.  What is most shocking about this image is that despite his perceived inevitability, McCain had trouble with precisely the same voters that Romney currently has trouble with.  The only difference is that this time, Romney is not yet the assumed nominee and the opposition to him is much more fervent. 

With only needing 39.24% of the vote to win, Romney will get much of that from the 20% of GOP voters who reside in Cook County.  Further, the suburbs that surround Cook County make up another approximately 29% of the vote, and they vote relatively the same as Cook. 

Therefore, in those counties, which make up approximately 49% of Illinois’ vote share, I would expect Mr. Romney to match John McCain’s proportion of the vote, which was approximately 51%.  Doing this would leave Romney with a total of 24.99% of the vote already locked up from just 5 counties.  This would mean that throughout the rest of the state, Romney would only need to get 29.08% of the vote, which is right at where he has been performing in the more rural areas of larger states.

Given all of this, I would still count Mr. Santorum the underdog.  However, as Mr. Silver also pointed out, Santorum tends to outperform his polling, and the RealClearPolitics average for the race is currently 37.7 for Romney and 31.3 for Santorum. There is no question that he can win, especially if he can drive up his numbers in the south and central part of the state and try to make inroads in the Chicago suburbs, but currently, it is advantage: Romney.

Analyzing Last Night’s Results

It turns out that Super Tuesday was pretty good for Mr. Romney, or at least as good as I predicted (accounting for delegates).  However, when it comes to perception, it seems as though Romney just can’t win.  Despite winning the most states (6) and the most delegates (212), Romney still can’t seem to close the deal, especially among the more conservative, tea-party base of the Republican party. 

What I find most interesting about most of the post-Super Tuesday chatter is that all this negative talk about Romney is occurring when his chief opponent (at least of the past couple weeks) performed poorly relative to expectations.  Sure, Mr. Santorum outperformed in Tennessee, and he even held Mr. Romney to only a one point win in Ohio, but in overall delegate count, he missed the projected mark by a whopping -28%.

It seems as though most of Rick Santorum’s losses were due to Newt Gingrich slightly outperforming, at least in terms of delegates.  Mr. Gingrich, on the whole, performed very poorly.  With the exception of his home state, which he had labeled a “must-win” for him to continue, Mr. Gingrich didn’t place better than third in any of the other contests. 

Which brings me to Dr. Paul; as projected, Ron Paul didn’t win any states last night and won exactly the number of delegates that was predicted.  He outperformed in a couple of states (Virginia and Vermont), but for the most part, Paul got in the double digits in barely any of the remaining contests.  Further, he severely underperformed in Alaska, a state that he had very high hopes for.  Results below:

It seems for the time being that neither of the four candidates have a real motive to get out of the race, and so it will go on.  To wrap up the nomination, a candidate must receive 1,144 delegates.  Mr. Romney currently has 401 delegates, and would need to win approximately 46% of the remaining delegates to seal the deal before the Tampa convention. 

Delegates	Romney	Santorum	Gingrich	Paul
Projected	212	110	57	21
Won	212	86	74	21
Error	0%	27.91%	22.97%	0%

Despite winning 51% of the delegates last night, that 46% will be made much more difficult when states aren’t voting together and Mr. Romney’s organization isn’t as useful as it was last night.  Still, unless someone drops out, Mitt Romney is still the candidate with the widest path towards becoming the GOP nominee.

Who Will Really Benefit from Super Tuesday?

As March 6^th (better known as Super Tuesday) has quickly approached, candidates are already spinning what constitutes a “win” for the day.  The Romney camp claims that the only thing that should matter at this point are the number of delegates won, while Rick Santorum is looking to see who wins the most states. 

I’d like to evaluate each of those assumptions to project which candidate will actually come out of Super Tuesday with the momentum to either seal the deal (in Mr. Romney’s case) or keep the contests alive and exciting (in Mr. Santorum’s case).  To do this, I will look at Super Tuesday by a state-by-state (and in some cases district-by-district) and tally the delegates based on assumptions made from polling, geography, and demographic strengths and weaknesses of each candidate.

Georgia (76)

If you’ve been listening to any of the chatter on cable-news, you would think that Ohio is the biggest prize in terms of number of delegates awarded today, but you would be wrong.  Georgia will award 76 delegates.  Like in all of the states, some delegates will be awarded proportionally, others by winning or coming in second place in congressional districts. Finally party leaders choose the remaining 3 delegates, and those delegates will be placed in a “tossup” column at the end of the article. 

Part of the reason Georgia has not received much press attention is because its native son, Newt Gingrich, is outpolling the other candidates by wide margins.  Still, the battle in Georgia is for second place. 

Georgia	Current Vote Share	Expected Vote Share	P.A.D.	C.D.D.	Total
Romney	0.238	0.25585	12	9	21
Santorum	0.182	0.19565	0	2	2
Gingrich	0.433	0.465475	21	17	38
Paul	0.072	0.0774	0	0	0

Ohio (66)

Ohio, as stated above, has become the big prize for the candidates on Super Tuesday.  Both Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum are statistically tied in the polls leading up to today’s race.  However, Mr. Santorum failed to qualify for all of the delegates.  Therefore, even if Santorum were to win the popular vote in Ohio, he is still very likely to lose the delegate race, as projected below.

Ohio	Current Vote Share	Expected Vote Share	P.A.D.	C.D.D.	Total
Romney	0.33	0.35013	8	36	44
Santorum	0.329	0.349069	7	12	19
Gingrich	0.16	0.16976	0	0	0
Paul	0.12	0.12732	0	0	0

Tennessee (58)

For a hot second, it seemed as though Rick Santorum would run away with Tennessee.  However, since his win in Michigan, Romney has gained a lot of ground at the expense of Mr. Santorum.  It’s certainly plausible that Tennessee could be the one southern state (excluding Virginia) Mr. Romney wins today.

Tennessee	Current Vote Share	Expected Vote Share	P.A.D.	C.D.D.	Total
Romney	0.287	0.30135	10	13	23
Santorum	0.323	0.33915	10	14	24
Gingrich	0.247	0.25935	8	0	8
Paul	0.093	0.09765	0	0	0

Virginia (49)

Only Mr. Romney and Mr. Paul qualified for the ballot in Virginia, and because of the way Virginia proportions its delegates, it is unlikely that Ron Paul will get more than a few of them.

Virginia	Current Vote Share	Expected Vote Share	P.A.D.	C.D.D.	Total
Romney	0.69	0.7245	9	33	42
Paul	0.26	0.273	4	0	4

Oklahoma (43)

Unlike Tennessee, Rick Santorum is still holding strong in Oklahoma, and has a chance to win a true majority of the vote.  However, there has been limited polling done in Oklahoma, so any projection could have a potentially high error.

Oklahoma	Current Vote Share	Expected Vote Share	P.A.D.	C.D.D.	Total
Romney	0.18	0.198	5	0	5
Santorum	0.43	0.473	13	15	28
Gingrich	0.22	0.242	7	0	7
Paul	0.07	0.077	0	0	0

Idaho (32)

Unfortunately, Idaho has not had any polling.  Because it is a caucus state, it is possible that Ron Paul will do well.  However, Mitt Romney won the state in 2008, it has a relatively high Mormon population, and it borders Washington, which Romney just won Saturday.  However, in Mr. Santorum’s favor is the fact that Idaho tends to lean very socially conservative, and the way the vote is counted in Idaho (a new round of voting takes place after a candidate is eliminated until one candidate reaches 50%) could benefit Santorum from gaining Mr. Gingrich’s votes.

Idaho	Current Vote Share	Expected Vote Share	2nd Round	3rd Round	P.A.D.	C.D.D.	Total
Romney	NA	0.4	0.418	0.521	15	0	15
Santorum	NA	0.33	0.398	0.479	14	0	14
Gingrich	NA	0.09	0.000	0	0	0	0
Paul	NA	0.18	0.185	0	0	0	0

North Dakota (28)

North Dakota has also not seen any polling.  However, due to its proximity to Minnesota, which Rick Santorum won with 45%, and its overall rural makeup, it’s probable that the results will be favorable to Mr. Santorum.  However, Ron Paul could also be expected to do well, as North Dakota is a caucus state, which tends to favor Ron Paul’s enthusiastic supporters.  Overall, I determined the expected vote share in ND by starting at Minnesota’s vote share and adding a bit more to Mr. Romney due to his overall rise in national polling.

North Dakota	Current Vote Share	Expected Vote Share	P.A.D.	Total
Romney	NA	0.25	7	7
Santorum	NA	0.39	11	11
Gingrich	NA	0.07	2	2
Paul	NA	0.29	8	8

Alaska (27)

Alaska is a quirky state, as it does not always follow the national trend.  In 2008, Romney won the caucuses, but Romney has not performed too well in caucus states in 2012.  Ron Paul is much more likely to do well, but Rick Santorum also has a shot to win if the evangelical base there coalesces around him.  No candidate has visited Alaska, so predicting this state is tough.

Alaska	Current Vote Share	Expected Vote Share	P.A.D.	Total
Romney	NA	0.33	8	8
Santorum	NA	0.22	5	5
Gingrich	NA	0.08	2	2
Paul	NA	0.37	9	9

Vermont (17)

Finally, we get to Vermont, the state with the least number of delegates in play.  There has been only one poll conducted in Vermont, and it is a bit old, from the time when Santorum was having his surge.  Mr. Romney likely has regained a bit of that lead, and the current vote share reflects that.

Vermont	Current Vote Share	Expected Vote Share	P.A.D.	Total
Romney	0.36	0.4068	9	9
Santorum	0.27	0.3051	5	5
Gingrich	0.1	0.113	0	0
Paul	0.14	0.1582	0	0

In conclusion, it will most assuredly be a good night for Mr. Romney.  He will win at least 3 of the 10 states, and he has an outside chance to win 7.  Either way, he will walk away with a very clear majority of delegates.  Mr. Santorum, conversely, could have either a very poor night (especially if he loses Ohio and others by larger than expected margins) or he could spin it to be a very good night.  He could potentially win 5 of the 10 states, in which case he would win more states than Mr. Romney.

Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul, however, will not (and are not expecting) to do well tonight.  Gingrich performs well in the south, and that’s about it; his appeal is very regional.  Paul performs well in caucus states, but he doesn’t have enough base support to win any of them, save perhaps Alaska. 

Total	Romney	Santorum	Gingrich	Paul	Tossup
Delegates	212	110	57	21	30
States	3	2	1	0	4

So to answer the question I originally posed, I’ll say that it can’t really be answered yet.  Romney will certainly do well in the delegate count.  However, if Santorum wins Ohio, he will surely spin the win as a referendum on Romney and claim that Romney, with all his money, can’t even win the swing state of Ohio.  Paul and Gingrich likely will not drop out after tonight, as they don’t have anything to lose by staying in the race.  But if anything has held true throughout this election cycle, it is to expect the unexpected.