Explanations for Why Romney Lost

In the five days since the presidential election there have been literally hundreds of statements by pundits commenting on how the Romney campaign / Republican Party lost the election and what they will need to do going forward.  Almost all of the explanations that have been put forward fall into one of five categories.  Some arguments straddle multiple categories.  Below I will go over a few of the arguments put forward with some commentary.  I am probably not bringing much new to the table - just putting the arguments all in one place. 

The Messenger - this is a favorite of hard-core conservatives.  The message was correct but the messenger was wrong.  I am actually somewhat sympathetic to a number of these criticisms.

• Gov. Romney was unable to make his best case - the Romney campaign started from the premise that people were most concerned about the economy.  Exit polls seem to bear that out. In the Edison Research exit poll conducted for the AP 59% of respondents said that the economy was the most important issue to them.  However Gov. Romney only won 49-48 among that cohort.  Gov. Romney was never able to adequately tie the poor economy to President Obama.  53% of voters blamed President Bush for the bad economy while only 38% blamed President Obama.  Nor was Gov. Romney ever able to adequately explain what he would do to improve the economy (see that argument here).
• Gov. Romney had difficulty with the healthcare issue - during the primary Gov Romney was attacked for having implemented RomneyCare (aka ObamaCare light) while serving as governor of Massachusetts.  Despite vowing to repeal ObamaCare on day one of a Romney administration he never was able to explain the distinction between the program he was proud of and the one that he was promising to repeal (see here).  Among the 18% of exit polled voters who said that health care was the most important issue to them Obama beat Romney by a margin of 75-24 (see here).
• Gov. Romney was an easy target in Ohio - Gov. Romney likely needed to win Ohio to win the presidency.  There were other paths that he could have taken to the White House but they were even more improbable.  However his association with Bain Capital and his Let Them Go Bankrupt article in the New York Times made it easy to attack him in the auto-lands of Ohio.  His TV ad which Chrysler publicly repudiated kept the Ohio focus on his problem with the auto industry - which was right where the Obama campaign wanted it.
• Gov. Romney failed the everyman test - polls asking if Gov Romney understands the concerns of people like you showed him consistently below 50%  (see here).  The fact that he was the son of a multimillionaire / governor, and that he himself is a multimillionaire and former governor, and that his wife owns and trains show horses all probably didn't help him appear like the everyman.  You can't blame him for those things though - he could still understand the concerns of others.  However his refusal to release tax returns, his "47% Speech", Rep. Ryan's "Makers-Takers Speech" and his seeming concern for the tax status of the wealthiest 1% all made it all a difficult sell.  President Obama consistently rated in the high 50s and low 60s by this metric (see here). 

The Execution - allows Romney supporters to blame the campaign managers.  I am skeptical of their impact.

• The primaries sapped Romney's campaign funds - see here for that argument.  While the Obama campaign did raise and spend more than the Romney campaign, independent expenditures more than made up for the difference.  Per here  the Obama campaign plus independent groups supporting Obama spent 396MM.  The Romney campaign plus independent groups supporting Romney spent 472MM.  Furthermore, while money is extremely important there are declining returns to scale to TV ads.  Would more campaign ads in OH really have changed the results of the election? 
• The Romney team let the Obama team attack for too long- (here from 4:30 to 6:30) - this sounds like whining to me.  This was the most expensive race in history, the Romney team spent more (472MM to 396MM), and spent a higher percent on negative ads (91% to 85%)   Hence, it is safe to say that President Obama had more negative ads run against him than anyone in history.
• Inaccurate polling - here and here are reporting that Republican insiders were blindsided by the results of the election as their internal polls showed Romney with a lead in many of the swing states and Republican Senate candidates performing significantly better than they ended up doing.  I call bullshit on this one.  You did not need to have a fancy Nate-Silver model to look at the general trend of public polls in the swing states and see that Gov. Romney was in trouble- as were a few of the Republican Senate hopefuls.  Republican pundits argued that the public polling numbers showing an Obama win were based on faulty voter screens which over-represented Democrats (see here here and  here) but they presented no hard evidence of why the screens were wrong (they turned out to be correct).  I am sure that the pollsters understood their own polls and could see they were in trouble.  If not then they are the worst pollsters ever - since everyone else understood it.
• The Beaching of Project Orca - see here here.  The Romney campaign's super-duper get out to vote (GOTV) system may have fallen apart on election day but I doubt that this failure had much impact on the outcome of the election.  The swing states had been saturated with election ads - it is unlikely that any call that a swing state voter could receive on election day (short of a call from the candidate himself) could influence which way s/he votes.  Furthermore in a presidential election such as this one I doubt that election day GOTV calls have significant impact in turning out voters.  If by election day a potential voter was not planning on voting then a call from an unknown person or a robocall is certainly not going to get them out either.  Perhaps calling could help in cases where a voter needs assistance getting to the polls -  but my experience (yes I have coordinated a few GOTVs) is that as of election day most voters who need such assistance either have already made arrangements or they are not going.  In local election years GOTV is very valuable, in midterm years it can be valuable, but in presidential election it is not so useful.

The Environment - hey there was no way that we could win under these circumstances!  Both campaign managers and Romney supporters could use these as defenses.

• Increased Hispanic / African American / Asian / youth representation in the electorate.  - see here While it is true that these groups turned out in slightly higher numbers than say in 2004 this is not really an explanation for losing.  It is kind of like saying "I lost because the people voted against me".   There are a number of potential voters.  A campaign can to a small degree influence who is registered and who turns out.  Other than that you have to appeal to the voters who show up.  If you don't then you lose.  Why this campaign did not appeal to the voters can be found in other sections.
• Hurricane Sandy made President Obama look good - see here here here and here.  Most voters gave the President and the federal government high marks for their response to the hurricane (see here).  However it is unlikely that made the whole difference.  As Nate Silver pointed out Romney was not leading prior to the hurricane either.  As a counter factual if the federal assistance had gone as badly as Hurricane Katrina did (see here) then President Obama would have been blamed for it as President Bush was.  The hurricane gave President Obama an opportunity to pass or fail ...and he passed.
• Gov. Chris Christie's embrace of President Obama following Sandy made Obama appear bipartisan - see here here here here.  There is probably some truth to this as well.  But again Gov Romney was not leading prior to the hurricane either. 
• Hurricane Isaac shortened the Republican National Convention depriving Gov. Romney of a chance to define himself -see here.  This is a bit of a stretch.  Gov. Romney still got a prime time opportunity to speak unfiltered to a national audience.  Furthermore, the evidence(see here)  is that convention bounces tend to be significant but short lived.  Actually if anything contributed to the dampening of the convention bounce it was not Hurricane Isaac but the opportunity lost by having the convention focus turned to Clint Eastwood's bizarre speech to a chair.
• The economy is improving and that helped Obama - yes it is true that the economy is improving however we are still in the deepest economic contraction since the Great Depression.  Among exit polled voters 39% said the economy was getting better, 20% said the economy was getting worse, and 29% said no change.  That is not a clear winning coalition.  Ray Fair's economic model of elections predicted President Obama would get 49% of the popular vote - certainly not the "throw the bums out" vote but also not a clear ringing endorsement.  In all likelihood there was an opportunity for Gov. Romney here but not nearly so big a one as was often assumed.

My Tinfoil Hat is Too Tight

•  The Mainstream Media was biased against Romney - see here  This is a constant claim from the right wing.  Fortunately we have the unbiased view here and here.
• Obama won through massive voter fraud - yup as predicted if Romney lost there would be cries of voter fraud.  See here here here here ...there are hundreds more.  I will be interested to see if there are any successful prosecutions (other than this one and this one) or just vague allegations meant to delegitimatize President Obama's win. 
• The Department of Labor fixed the jobs numbers to make the Obama administration look better-  you think this is a joke right?  see here here here
• "Mitt Romney told donors on a call Wednesday that President Barack Obama outmatched him by offering "gifts" to African Americans, Hispanics and young voters, according to various news outlets.  " - see here.

The final category is The Message.  I will save that one for the next posting.