Nate Silver's model did really well at predictions. Here's his recap, As Nation and Parties Change, Republicans Are at an Electoral College Disadvantage and Which Polls Fared Best (and Worst) in the 2012 Presidential Race.
Here are a lot of nice Election Maps, for example:
The Post also has a really good article, The strategy that paved a winning path and I mostly agree with the Post's Lessons from the 2012 Election.
I'm not a fan of Tom Friedman, but I agree with this: "And that is why Obama’s victory is so devastating for the G.O.P. A country with nearly 8 percent unemployment preferred to give the president a second chance rather than Mitt Romney a first one. The Republican Party today needs to have a real heart-to-heart with itself. The G.O.P. has lost two presidential elections in a row because it forced its candidate to run so far to the loony right to get through the primaries, dominated by its ultraconservative base, that he could not get close enough back to the center to carry the national election. It is not enough for Republicans to tell their Democratic colleagues in private — as some do — “I wish I could help you, but our base is crazy.” They need to have their own reformation. The center-right has got to have it out with the far-right, or it is going to be a minority party for a long time."
There was an article before the election that said 15 Senate candidates, all Republicans, opposed allowing abortion in the case of rape. Later that list was shortened to 13 though I'm not sure who other than MacGovern was removed, but his position was debatable. Still here's the list, it turns out 12 of the 15 lost.
Won NE Deb Fischer
Won NV Dean Heller
Won TX Ted Cruz
Lost IN Richard Mourdock
Lost MI Pete Hoekstra
Lost MO Todd Akin
Lost MT Denny Rehberg
Lost ND Rick Berg
Lost NY Wendy Long
Lost OH Josh Mandel
Lost PA Tom Smith
Lost VA George Allen
Lost VT John MacGovern *
Lost WA Michael Baumgartner
Lost WV John Raese
Time goes Inside the Secret World of the Data Crunchers Who Helped Obama Win
"A large portion of the cash raised online came through an intricate, metric-driven e-mail campaign in which dozens of fundraising appeals went out each day. Here again, data collection and analysis were paramount. Many of the e-mails sent to supporters were just tests, with different subject lines, senders and messages. Inside the campaign, there were office pools on which combination would raise the most money, and often the pools got it wrong. Michelle Obama’s e-mails performed best in the spring, and at times, campaign boss Messina performed better than Vice President Joe Biden. In many cases, the top performers raised 10 times as much money for the campaign as the underperformers.
Chicago discovered that people who signed up for the campaign’s Quick Donate program, which allowed repeat giving online or via text message without having to re-enter credit-card information, gave about four times as much as other donors. So the program was expanded and incentivized. By the end of October, Quick Donate had become a big part of the campaign’s messaging to supporters, and first-time donors were offered a free bumper sticker to sign up."
“We ran the election 66,000 times every night,” said a senior official, describing the computer simulations the campaign ran to figure out Obama’s odds of winning each swing state. “And every morning we got the spit-out — here are your chances of winning these states. And that is how we allocated resources.”
On the Romney side, they had Project Orca. John Ekdahl wrote about The Unmitigated Disaster Known As Project ORCA. Breitbart has more, Inside Orca: How The Romney Campaign Suppressed Its Own Vote. As does Dan Farber on CNet, Why Romney's Orca killer app beached on Election Day.
Red State says Campaign Sources: The Romney Campaign was a Consultant Con Job. "According to sources who worked closely with the program, the blame is at the feet of consultants. Specifically Targeted Victory, FLS Connect, and The Stevens and Schriefer Group. While the Romney campaign did work with other consultants, they were apparently not part of the problem. They say that the truth is the consultants essentially used the Romney campaign as a money making scheme, forcing employees to spin false data as truth in order to paint a rosy picture of a successful campaign as a form of job security."
This is why people distrust consultants.
The Republicans kept the House but the reason seems to be Gerrymandering. House Democrats got more votes than House Republicans. Yet Boehner says he’s got a mandate? "It can be a bit difficult to tally up the popular vote in House elections because you have to go ballot by ballot, and many incumbents run unopposed. But The Washington Post’s Dan Keating did the work and found that Democrats got 54,301,095 votes while Republicans got 53,822,442. That’s a close election — 48.8%-48.5% –but it’s still a popular vote win for the Democrats. Those precise numbers might change a bit as the count finalizes, but the tally isn’t likely to flip." Some of the details are here, How redistricting could keep the House red for a decade. Fortunately 2020 is a presidential election so I hope the Dems do better.
Dems Make Major State Gains. "Our pre-election post on the state legislative landscape mentioned as Democratic takeover goals both Houses in Maine and Minnesota; the House in Colorado and Oregon, and the Senate in New York. All were achieved (check out the National Conference of State Legislature’s nifty interactive results map for details). Democrats also appear to have picked up the gigantic New Hampshire House (a major source of so many of those “we won a million net seats!” claims from Republicans in 2010). And moreover, Republicans failed in their own goals of picking up the Colorado, Iowa and Washington Senates, or the New Mexico House (they did pick up one, and possibly two, chambers in Arkansas, and consolidated temporarily-lost control in Wisconsin and Alaska). Out here in California, it appears Democrats have finally achieved the impossible dream of super-majorities in both Houses of the legislature, breaking the veto power of the GOP over any legislation involving taxes."
Marijuana and same-sex marriage win big in ballot measures. "Given the relative stasis in the presidential and Congressional election results, perhaps the most exciting news last night was at the level of state ballot initiatives. They ran the gamut from allowing same-sex marriage to banning same-sex marriage, from raising taxes to banning tax increases, etc. Here’s what won, what lost and by how much."
I have to say, I've never seen the word Schadenfreude as many times as I have this week and I've been enjoying it myself, for example, Karl Rove Defends His $300 Million Disaster. Here are some of my favorite tweets from the night:
@billmaher: Tea Party has now cost the Republicans 5 senate seats. My next donation is going to them.
@WGladstone: Your party doesn't believe in evolution. RT @McCainBlogette Heartbroken. My party has to evolve or it's going to die.
@tomtomorrow: We're NOT a majority rightwing nut job country, motherfuckers.
@BorowitzReport: BREAKING: Man Who Told Half the Nation to Fuck Themselves Somehow Loses Election #election #election2012 #vote2012
@chrislhayes: Looks like Mitt Romney won't win any of his 4 home states :(
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