谁赢?
Wall Street Journal Political Diary contributors offer their predictions for Election Day.
Robert L. Pollock, Wall Street Journal editorial board member.
Mitt Romney will win the presidency with a comfortable majority of more than 300 Electoral College votes. Ohio will not be decisive because other Midwestern states—possibly including Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota and Michigan—will fall into the Romney camp. So will Colorado, Florida, Virginia, North Carolina, New Hampshire and, likely, Pennsylvania.
Why? I'm going with the general rule of the thumb that incumbent presidents who can't get themselves above 50% in the polls do not win. I'm also assuming presidents running for re-election in an economy as bad as ours do not win. Polls showing a close race are based on samples with a Democratic bias.
Mr. Romney is the most articulate candidate the GOP has put forward since Ronald Reagan. Although he is not the kind of small-government conservative that excites the Republican base, the base is confident that he is serious about tackling our debt crisis and repealing ObamaCare. He is also viewed favorably by independents. If he cannot win in an economy like this one, it would mean that the composition of the electorate has changed in such a way that the current GOP coalition will probably never elect another president.
Is there any reason to believe the electorate has changed in such a way? No. Look at the tea party and the congressional results from 2010. Look at the recent Gallup numbers showing a decisive shift in self-identified party affiliation toward the GOP between 2008 and 2012.
But Republicans should not get cocky when they win. One of the smartest things a President Romney could do would be common-sense immigration reform to make Hispanics—many of whom have conservative values—more comfortable voting for the party. That would help keep the GOP coalition viable for decades to come.