2012 electoral map

From the beginning of this election cycle, we have focused on cold hard math, because that’s how you know who is winning and who is likely to prevail. In a presidential election, the cold hard math is the state count of electoral votes. With just one day left before the 2016 elections, and after all the controversies, conspiracies and insults, plus widespread early voting, most of the electoral vote models show Hillary Clinton winning decisively over Donald Trump. These models include the Los Angeles Times with a whopping 352 electoral votes for Clinton, Real Clear Politics with 301 EVs for Clinton when “toss-up” states are assigned, and virtually every other scientific prediction showing Clinton well ahead even before assigning the toss-ups.

The oft-neglected fact about this election is that, since electoral votes are based on state population, the Republicans have a basic electoral problem: they are more popular in states with fewer people and thus fewer electoral votes. In essence, the GOP had a steep uphill climb before this campaign even began.