Americas

Home page

Americas

US analysts predict a slight gap in election results â€“ ANALYSIS â€“ PHOTOSESSION

US analysts predict a slight gap in election results â€“<font color=red> ANALYSIS â€“ PHOTOSESSION</font>

31 October 2012 09:20 (UTC +04:00)

Washington. New Hampshire. Viktoria Dementyeva-APA. Analysts forecast that there will be small difference of votes between the candidates in the presidential elections in the US on November 6.
Director of Pew Research Center Scott Keeter speaking to APAâ€™s correspondent in Washington publicized the results of the recent polls.

â€œThere is a small difference of votes between the candidates. The votes will approximately be as follows: 50.2% of the voters support Barack Obama, 48.8% Mitt Romney. The first debates between Obama and Romney had a great influence on the voters, following the debates, Obamaâ€™s rating fell from 48% to 42%, according to forecasts, the difference between the candidates is 1-2 percent,â€ he said.

Representative of Ipsos company experienced in polls and forecasts Julia Clark considers that the difference of votes will be insignificant.
According to Ipsos forecasts, Barack Obamaâ€™s chance to win is 70-80 percent. Julia Clark thinks that the fact that Obama is holding the post gives him some advantages.

â€œBut according to the recent polls and taking into account the countryâ€™s economic situation, we can say that the difference of votes between the candidates will be insignificant,â€ she said.

Famous journalist of the Washington Post, political analyst Glenn Kessler considers that insignificant difference encourages the voters to participate in the voting. It should be mentioned that 57 percent of the eligible voters participated in the voting in 2008. According to statistics, republicans are more active in the voting than the democrats.

According to the poll conducted by Pew Research Center, the floating voters will support Barack Obama, 13% of the respondents consider him a strong leader, 14% support his foreign policy, 21% consider him a sincere politician, 20% of the respondents say he is moderate person. 21% of the floating voters are going to vote for Mitt Romney taking into account budget deficit, 13% will support Romney taking into account the job market.

The poll conducted by Reuters show that 2/3 of the Muslim voters will support Barack Obama. Obama is also popular among the youth. Scott Keeter considers that if Obama gains the votes of 66 percent of the youth as in the previous elections, he can increase the difference of votes.

Some experts mention a possible repeat of the controversial 2000 election with the winning candidate having received fewer popular votes than the runner-up. Though Democrat Albert Gore received more votes in 2000, George Bush was elected. The results of the voting in Florida decided the fate of the elections. For the fourth time in the history of the US the winner received fewer votes than the runner-up. This is connected with the peculiarities of the US election system and the existence of the two-stage Electoral College. The results of the elections do not depend on the majority of the votes, but on the distribution of 538 votes of the Electoral College.

The system of Electoral College is being applied to support the principle of federalism. The aim of this system is to prevent prevalence of larger states over smaller states. The members of the Electoral College from each state give their all their votes for the candidate, who received the majority of votes in that state.

The number of electors of the College is equal to the number of statesâ€™ representatives at the Congress (2 senators + Members of the House of Representatives. The number of the members of the House of Representatives is equal to the number of electoral districts in the state). The majority of votes at the Electoral College belong to the State of California â€“ 55 votes. This state is being represented with 2 senators and 53 members of the House of Representatives at the Congress. Montana, Alaska, Vermont, Delaware, the South Dakota and North Dakota have 3 votes. Thus, if a candidate gains the votes of 270 members (50%+1) of the Electoral College, he is considered the winner.

At the moment it is difficult to predict the results of the election in 9 states of the US, they are called â€œswing statesâ€. Traditionally it is considered that whoever wins the election here, he wins the election in general. Therefore, the candidates pay more attention to the election campaign in these states.

But in other states, one can predict the results of elections. The densely populated states located in the US East and West coasts usually vote for the candidate of democrats, central and southern states for the candidate of Republicans.