Bill O'Reilly: Who would win the presidential election if held today?
July 19, 2012

By Bill O'Reilly

Last night, Charles Krauthammer predicted President Obama would win if the vote were held right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER, COLUMNIST: He's got a two-point edge in the popular vote. It's almost inconceivable that you would have that strong an over... an excess in the overall vote and lose in the Electoral College.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'REILLY: However, Karl Rove disagrees and believes Romney would win. That's interesting as both Krauthammer and Rove are astute analysts.

Now "Talking Points" believes Barack Obama would not carry one state that voted for John McCain last time around. Therefore, Mitt Romney begins with 173 electoral votes. I also think the President will lose North Carolina. That's 15 electoral votes. He'll lose New Hampshire, four electoral votes; and Indiana, eleven electoral votes. That brings Governor Romney up to 203 electoral votes, 270 needed to win.

So the governor is 67 electoral votes away if my analysis is correct. He can get 60 of those votes if he wins Virginia, Ohio, and Florida. That would leave him just seven electoral votes from the presidency.

So you can see that Mr. Obama has very little margin of error. According to a poll by Purple Strategies, Ohio, Virginia and Florida are tied right now within the margin of error. As Dick Morris always says when it's a tie, the challenger usually wins because undecideds break against the guy they know best, in this case, the President.

Also the state of Colorado with nine electoral votes is a tie as well. Florida most likely to go to Romney. The Governor there is Republican. The economy very shaky and the minority vote for Obama will not be as great as it was in 2008. Ohio has Republican John Kasich as Governor and the economy is improving there under John, whom you remember used to sub for me here on "The Factor."

So Romney has a very good chance to take Ohio. Virginia is a wild card, but again it's controlled by a Republican Governor, Bob McDonald who has improved the economy in his state. Also there's a good chance that Romney will choose a VP candidate from one of those three states. He almost has to.

So going forward, Romney is in pretty good shape according to Karl Rove's map. Romney is competitive in Michigan, Iowa and New Hampshire, three states that went for President Obama last time around. They comprise 26 electoral votes.

Also "Talking Points" does not see how Barack Obama is going to carry Nevada with unemployment there at close to 12 percent. So with all due respect to Charles Krauthammer, at this point I think Romney might be in the zone.

And that's "The Memo."

- You can catch Bill O'Reilly's "Talking Points Memo" weeknights at 8 and 11 p.m. ET on the Fox News Channel and any time on foxnews.com/oreilly. Send your comments to: oreilly@foxnews.com.

Transcript Date: 
Wed, 07/18/2012
Transcript Show Name: 
O'Reilly Factor
Posted by BillOReilly.com Staff at 5:39 AM
Share this entry
<< Back to Talking Points Memo