I Predict Portman

Making predictions about politics is usually a dumb idea. And in a week or two when Mitt Romney announces his VP pick, I'll probably have egg on my face.

But I'm going to make a prediction anyway: Romney's vice presidential pick will be Ohio's very own senator, Rob Portman.

This isn't a particularly novel prediction, as it's well-known that he is on Romney's short list and the folks over at Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball are also betting that it'll be Portman. I've leaned in this direction for some time now--through the Marco Rubio and Chris Christie fads--but in recent weeks this pick has started to seem more likely. Despite Portman being from the uber-swing state, it's generally accepted that candidates generally don't choose a running mate with the intent of swinging a specific state, though they may seek some sort of regional "balance" to avoid the perception of having only sectional appeal. Off the top of my head, the last election I can think of where the ability of a VP candidate to swing a state or region played an important role in his selection was in 1960.

However, there's something peculiar happening in the polling right now: the curious phenomenon that Obama is outperforming his national numbers in key swing states, most noticeably in Ohio. As Nate Silver noted at the end of last week: Ohio Polls Show Trouble for Romney.

Nowhere was this more apparent than in Ohio, where there were two new polls out on Friday. One of them, from the firm We Ask America, gave Mr. Obama an eight-point lead there. Another, from Magellan Strategies, put Mr. Obama up by two points.

Our model “thinks” the Magellan Strategies poll is a more realistic estimate of the state of play in Ohio. The model now forecasts a three-point victory for Mr. Obama there, which it translates to about a two-in-three chance of his winning the state given the uncertainty in the forecast.

Mr. Obama’s projected three-point lead in Ohio is important for the following reason, however: it’s slightly larger than the 2.4-point advantage that the model now gives Mr. Obama in the national popular vote.

In other words, based on the data so far this year, Ohio has been slightly Democratic-leaning relative to the country as a whole. That reflects a reversal from the usual circumstances. Normally, Ohio — though very close to the national averages — leans Republican by two points or so.

That was followed up by another new Quinnipiac University/New York Times/CBS News poll of three battleground states this week:

A snapshot of the race, taken during a burst of summer campaigning, found that Mr. Obama holds an advantage of 6 percentage points over Mr. Romney in Florida and Ohio. The president is stronger in Pennsylvania, leading by 11 percentage points. The margin of sampling of error is plus or minus three percentage points in each state.

As of this moment, the RealClearPolitics average of state polls of Ohio has Obama up 4.8 points in Ohio.



Republicans do not win the presidency without winning Ohio. I invite you to play with 270towin and find realistic winning scenarios for Mitt Romney that don't involve Ohio. It's very, very tough. And while it's still overwhelmingly likely that whoever wins the popular vote will also win the electoral vote and become President, there is a small chance that Obama will lose the popular vote but win the electoral college (Nate Silver's models currently show that outcome 5.4% of the time, vs. only 0.8% for the reverse scenario). If that occurs, Ohio will likely be the reason.

Of course, the candidate winning the popular vote has only lost the election three times in races where two candidates earned all the electoral votes (in the election of 1824, electoral votes were split between four different candidates). In the late 19th century, during a period of intense polarization this happened twice in 12 years: in the election of 1876 (the only time a candidate won an outright majority, not plurality, of the popular vote and still lost the election) and the election of 1888. In our own time, of course, the relevant example is the election of 2000. Which happens to have been 12 years ago.*

Yes, the polls in Ohio may well tighten up (maybe even reverse themselves) over the next three months. But Romney needs to make his choice now, not after waiting a few months to watch how Ohio plays out. Hoping that Ohio will swing his way requires making a number of assumptions: that Romney's opposition to the auto bailout ultimately won't have much impact, that Obama's characterizations of Romney in his latest ad blitzes won't stick, that the lower unemployment rate in Ohio will be trumped by continued tepid national numbers, and so on.

One thing that held me back a bit regarding Portman, however, was that his lengthy record of public service includes a stint as George W. Bush's budget director. George W. Bush's fiscal credentials, you may recall, are suspect among a base that's rhetorically devoted to fiscal discipline. And memories of his dismal economic record are unlikely to have faded among the broader public.

Indeed, we've seen lately that the Obama campaign is framing the election as something of a matchup of the policies of Bill Clinton vs. the policies of George W. Bush. A Portman pick would seemingly play into that narrative. In addition to the recent announcement that Bill Clinton will be getting a primetime speaking slot at the Democratic convention next month (taking the slot that normally would go to Joe Biden, who gets bumped to performing as Obama's warmup act the following night), Obama has used some lines on the campaign trail that compare Romney's Bush-esque agenda of tax cuts for the wealthy and deregulation with his own Clintonesque tax agenda:

I'm running because I believe you can’t reduce the deficit -- which is a serious problem, we’ve got to deal with it -- but we can’t reduce it without asking folks like me who have been incredibly blessed to give up the tax cuts that we’ve been getting for a decade. (Applause.) I'll cut out government spending that’s not working, that we can’t afford, but I’m also going to ask anybody making over $250,000 a year to go back to the tax rates they were paying under Bill Clinton, back when our economy created 23 million new jobs -- (applause) -- the biggest budget surplus in history and everybody did well.

Just like we’ve tried their plan, we tried our plan -- and it worked. That’s the difference. (Applause.) That’s the choice in this election. That’s why I’m running for a second term.

(Perhaps predictably, Mitt Romney's campaign has continued its habit of using out-of-context quotes to make attack ads. They have at least one of Obama saying "we tried our plan--and it worked" to imply he's speaking about the stimulus which, Trunk's excellent post aside, is much easier to demonize among average Americans than is Clinton's economic policy).

But Portman is trying this week to get out in front of attempts to link him to the Bush administration's failures. See this article out of The Hill today: Possible VP pick Rob Portman was ‘frustrated’ at Bush budget office .

Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), who served as former President George W. Bush’s budget director, sought this week to distance himself from his former boss by saying he was “frustrated” in the high-profile post.

Pressed on his record with Bush, Portman — a leading GOP vice presidential contender — agreed to an exclusive interview with The Hill in his Senate office.

Portman was careful to not criticize Bush while detailing the challenges he faced from other administration officials, whom he declined to name. The comments indicate that Portman is seeking to keep Bush at arm’s length while also not appearing to be disloyal.

Self-serving attempt to overcome his greatest weakness as Romney closes in on a final VP decision? Or perhaps the word has come down to start the messaging process because he's very likely to be the VP nominee? I have no idea, of course, but it's interesting. Perhaps Romney will ultimately choose a different incredibly boring white guy as his Number Two (e.g. Tim Pawlenty) but right now Portman has to be the favorite.

Fun fact: this ticket would be the reverse of the winning ticket in 1920. In that election, a Republican Senator from Ohio (Harding) topped the ticket, pulling along a Massachusetts Governor (Coolidge) as his VP. Now we'd have a Massachusetts Governor enlisting an Ohio Senator.

* This is just a bit of political numerology. Presidential elections in the 1880s were more polarized than those today: the two intervening elections between the 1876/88 popular-plurality-loser elections were decided in the popular vote by 0.1% and 0.3%. Meanwhile, in our time the 2004 and 2008 elections were decided by 2.4% and 7.2%, respectively (though the latter had some shades of 1932 to it, which disrupted what otherwise looked like a potentially close election).