Pundits, wonks and psychics offer their Election Day predictions

Everyone has an opinion about who will win on Election Day 2012—but not everyone is a professional pundit. Thanks to this handy list, you can quickly see what some of the nation's top experts think about whether President Obama or Mitt Romney will make it to the White House.

And when all of the election results have been officially tallied, you can use our list as a referendum on the prognostication abilities of your favorite, and least favorite, talking heads.

We've broken down the list of predictions to include "wonks," "pundits" and, yes, even "psychics." Who, coincidentally (or not), have broken almost unanimously for a successful Obama re-election but also see the threat of a 2000 Florida-style recount on the horizon.

Wonks:
Nate Silver: Obama 307.2, Romney 230.8

Dr. Kenneth Bickers, University of Colorado professor: "Around 330 electoral votes for Governor Romney. … This is based on looking back at elections all the way to 1980."

Yale University economist Ray Fair: 49.05 percent for Obama but with economic trends in favor of a Romney victory

East Lansing economists Patrick Anderson and Ilhan Geckil: Romney victory by 3 points. "It looks pretty strong for the challenger," Anderson said. "On balance, the economic conditions today are about where they were at at the beginning of the year in terms of favoring the challenger."

Ezra Klein, Washington Post: Obama 290, Romney 248. "I have a simple rule when predicting presidential elections: The polls, taken together, are typically pretty accurate."

Allan Lichtman, a history professor at American University and author of the study "13 Keys to the Presidency": "The Keys show that elections are not horse races in which candidates surge ahead or fall behind on the campaign trail, with pollsters keeping score."

Drew Linzer, assistant professor of political science at Emory University: Obama 326, Romney 212

Sam Wang, Princeton Election Consortium: Obama 309, Romney 229

Larry Sabato: Obama 290, Romney 248. "Our final Electoral College projection has the president winning the key swing states of Colorado, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio and Wisconsin."

Pundits:
Michael Barone: Romney 315, Obama 223. "That sounds high for Romney. But he could drop Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and still win the election. Fundamentals."

Donna Brazile, Democratic strategist: Obama 313, Romney 225. "On the popular vote, I do see Obama eking it out, barely."

Ron Brownstein, National Journal: Obama 288, Romney 250. "Obama will win the narrowest margin of re-election popular vote victory for any president ever."

Dean Chambers, Unskewed Polls: Romney 311, Obama 227

Matthew Dowd, Republican strategist: Obama 303, Romney 235. "I think there's a still a chance Mitt Romney wins the popular vote but he loses the electoral college."

Jay Cost, Weekly Standard: a Romney win. "For two reasons. (1) Romney leads among voters on trust to get the economy going again. (2) Romney leads among independents."

Jim Cramer, CNBC: Obama 440, Romney 98. "The presidential race is nowhere as close as the polls suggest."

Dick Morris, Fox News: Romney 325, Obama 213. "It will rekindle the whole question on why the media played this race as a nailbiter where in fact Romney's going to win by quite a bit."

Rupert Murdoch, News Corp. chairman: "[P]lenty of straws to grasp for Romney, probably not enough."

Cokie Roberts, ABC News: Obama 294, Romney 234

Wayne Allen Root, Las Vegas Odds Maker and 2008 Libertarian Party vp nominee: "It will be an electoral landslide. Five to seven points popular vote and 100 to 120 electoral vote victory for Mitt Romney."

Karl Rove, Republican strategist: Romney 279, Obama 259. "It comes down to numbers. And in the final days of this presidential race, from polling data to early voting, they favor Mitt Romney."

George Will, Washington Post: Romney 321, Obama 217. "I guess the wild card in what I've projected is I'm projecting Minnesota to go for Romney."

Psychics, etc:

Psychic Source survey of 172 psychics: Obama has a 71.5 percent chance of winning. "Mercury goes retrograde on the day of the election which usually means the current president will win again," reveals one professional psychic. Others cite spiritual guides, cards and even handwriting analysis of Obama's signature, "an indication of the way he can make the public swoon over him."

United Astrology Conference panel of six: unanimously predicts Obama victory. "The astrologers also warned that a Mercury retrograde—an alignment of Mercury, the sun and Earth—begins on Election Day and could lead to voting irregularities," USA Today reported. "The last time a Mercury retrograde appeared on Election Day was on Nov. 7, 2000—and it took a Florida recount and Supreme Court decision to finalize a winner."

Judy Hevenly, psychic: Obama

Sidney Friedman, psychic: Obama

Denise Siegel, psychic: Obama. "It might even look like [Romney] will or could win. He may even lead in the polls. But on the day of the election Obama has enough of an astrological edge to beat out Romney."

Apartments.com users: 74 percent predict an Obama re-election