Late last night, I wondered how on earth what we saw at the polls could be so radically wrong. The primarily Democratic line was 1/3 of the size as 2008. The primarily GOP side was marginally bigger. I know we didn’t imagine that.
Waiting for all of our county returns to come in very late into the night, I checked the numbers from 2008 against this year and our county really did go more red. In fact, it’s the only Pennsylvania county that only barely went Obama – it was a one point race. Every other county that went for Obama went by anywhere from 5-20+ points.
Obama actually lost nearly 20,000 votes in our single county. Romney managed to get more than 5,600 more votes than McCain. Add that loss and gain together, and this was a Philadelphia suburban county that went Obama by only 3,700 votes.
I am continually surprised by how blue the whole of PA is, considering how much us “country folk” in the middle of the state like our guns. To hear that Obama is losing favor towards Philly (which is practically New Jersey when it comes to voting) gives me hope for the rest of the state.
I figured we’d look more like Florida – major metropolitan areas blue, rest of it red. Perhaps we’ll get there next time around.
You made me look Florida
2008
Barack Obama 4,282,074 50.91%
John McCain 4,045,624 48.10%
2012
Barack Obama 4,141,618 49.85%
Mitt Romney 4,094,952 49.29%
Obama lost about 140,000 votes. Mitt Romney got about 47,000 more than McCain.
PS: Tally is still running in Fla as some counties are still counting absentee ballots.
I think Romney was just a poor candidate. He had no personality. He had no vision. We needed a solid candidate (*cough*Ron Paul*cough*) that could overcome the personality of Obama.
I knew that as soon as Romney got the nomination Obama would win.