New Swing State Polls: FL, OH, VA, CO, NH -- Is Obama Still Up?
Posted by Ashish on 09.13.2012
Obama continues to lead in all the key swing states...
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Several new swing state polls have come in, and the numbers continue to be good for Obama. Here are all the latest swing state polls out today.
While the Rush Limbaughs of the world continue to try and ignore reality and rant about bizarre things like polling conspiracies, there is no dancing around the facts -- all pollsters (including Fox News and Rasmussen) show Obama has leads both nationally and in the key swing states. NBC/Marist has a slight Democratic lean in their polls, Rasmussen has a slight Republican lean. Average it all together and you have what appears to be 3-5% leads for Obama in Ohio, Florida, Virginia, and Colorado. Romney would need to win three of those states to have a realistic path to 270 electoral votes, Obama probably only needs two to get to 270. Obama currently has a comfortable lead in the electoral college. When you average all state polls together (courtesy of Real Clear Politics), Obama leads 332 to 206. The 538 electoral college model, which uses all polls, economic data, and other data in a statistical model designed to project the electoral college winner, has it Obama 315, Romney 223.
The good news for Romney is he is still close enough to come back. But ignoring the data and the reality of the situation and trying to emphasize your opponent's strongest area -- foreign policy -- in an election that will be decided by the economy is not wise. Libya is not going to move middle class, blue-collar votes in Ohio. Or Hispanic votes in Colorado. It is painfully obvious if you've seen Romney try to answer questions on foreign policy this week that he is not comfortable talking about it. The issue is not helping him. He tried to create a change moment, it was a swing and a miss, and he needs to move on (and it looks like he is, as he changed his rhetoric on the subject dramatically today, sounding much softer and not emphasizing it as much).
What Romney does need to do is move to the middle more than he has. He is going to have to do something to shave a sliver off of Obama's big leads among women, Hispanics, and blue-collar workers, and the only way to do that is to move more to the middle on women's rights, immigration reform, and worker rights while tailoring his message a bit more to the middle class. He has not been able to connect with these groups at all thus far. How he does that now in a believable way without his party turning on him is another story entirely. Nobody said it was easy to win a Presidential election.
STAY CURRENT