It's Over For Obama: Romney Will Win

It's all over but the crying now.  Romney is ahead in early voting, ahead by double-digits with independent voters, ahead with likely voters, ahead in favorability and helped by a large shift of the voting population to the Republican party.  His momentum in swing states continues. Finally, undecideds usually break for the challenger by a large margin--meaning many of the close states will go to the Romney camp.

Romney Winning in Early Voting
According to Gallup and Breitbart's John Nolte:

Romney currently leads Obama 52% to 45% among voters who say they have already cast their ballots. However, that is comparable to Romney's 51% to 46% lead among all likely voters in Gallup's Oct. 22-28 tracking polling. At the same time, the race is tied at 49% among those who have not yet voted but still intend to vote early, suggesting these voters could cause the race to tighten. However, Romney leads 51% to 45% among the much larger group of voters who plan to vote on Election Day, Nov. 6.

The fact that Romney is leading in early voting makes Democratic claims that they are leading with early voters sound like another "fabrication."  (I'm trying to be kind.)  Nationally, Romney has been over 50% in likely voters at Gallup since October 15th while Obama has been stuck in the mid 40s since then.   Obama is not making it to 50% in most swing state polls either---even when most polling is over-sampling democratic voters.

Romney Momentum Continues in Swing States
The races are close in several swing states. There is basically a tie in Iowa, Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan.  The undecided usually break for the challenger, meaning Romney will very likely carry those states.

According to Rasmussen as of today Oct 30th, Romney has a 2 point advantage in Ohio. Romney has had a 2 point advantage in Florida for several weeks now. Obama has basically conceded Florida.

The Number of Republicans Voting is Way Up from 2004 and 2008
The electorate is moving Republican in a big way--the most in recent history. According to Gallup and Dick Morris:

Gallup reported on Friday that the likely 2012 electorate will be among the most Republican in history. 

In 2008, 12 percent more self-described Democrats voted than Republicans (54-42). In 2004, the electorate was 48-48 evenly split between the parties. In Gallup’s poll they found that in 2012 it will be 46-49 for the Republicans — a fifteen point swing from 2008!  (a three point swing from 2004)

The reason most other polls are wrong is that, seeing this Republican surge, they discount it as sampling error in their polls and re-weight the data to make it conform to the traditional partisan divisions, thus obliterating the real trend and obscuring what is actually going on.

Obama won by 7 points in 2008, so with a 15 point swing, one should be able to predict a Romney win by 8 points!  

Romney is Winning a Large Majority of Independent Voters

According to most polls, Romney is up by double-digits with Independents. This is devastating news for the Obama camp.  

From Chris Cillizza at the Washington Post, on October 29,  he reports that Romney has huge lead with independents. Note that Independents make up about 28% of the electorate according to polls in the past three presidential elections.

In the last three releases of the tracking poll conducted by The Washington Post and ABC News, Obama has trailed former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney among independent voters by between 16 and 20 percentage points.

According to a Public Policy Poll, an Obama-friendly pollster, Romney has a 16 point lead over Obama with Independents!  An IBD/TIPP poll, also kind to Obama and showing Obama winning overall but shows Romney winning independents by 46% to 38%.

Romney Winning on Favorability

RealClearPolitics has Romney with a +2.6% advantages (on average) in favorability compared to Obama as of today Oct 30.  

So, Romney is ahead in the polls of likely voters, ahead by a large margin with Independents, has higher favorability ratings than Obama, and is aided by the shift of the voting public to the Republican party.  All of this spells a comfortable win for Romney. 

But why wouldn't this result have been expected?  The 2012 is just a continuation of the 2010 "shellacking" when Republicans re-took the House by gaining 63 seats and gaining seats in the Senate.  It's highly possible, even probable, that the Republicans will win the Senate as other elections are swept in Romney's coattails.