Romney’s Target Map Expands
In 2008, Obama won Michigan by 16%, Pennsylvania by 10%, and Wisconsin by 14%. It still seems like a bit of a long-shot for Romney to carry any of the three, but if he is close in these states, it would seem to confirm that his position has dramatically improved in states that were always on the target list such as Florida, Ohio, and Virginia — which Obama won by 3%, 5%, and 6% in 2008.
If in fact Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania are in play, then an upset in one of them could make up for Romney falling short in one of the three primary target states of Florida, Virginia, and Ohio.
For much of the campaign, President Obama has outperformed in the swing states. In 2008, his margin of victory in the battleground states was about the same as in the national popular vote. This year, Obama has been doing better in the key battlegrounds than with his national numbers due to an early and aggressive negative ad campaign designed to define Mitt Romney for voters before he had the opportunity to do so himself.
Romney was characterized as a tax cheat and avoider, a man who hid his money offshore, and a ruthless capitalist to boot — outsourcing jobs and laying off workers, as well as being responsible for people losing their health insurance and then dying of cancer.
While many pundits assumed that the strong fundraising numbers for Romney and the RNC during the summer meant that Romney was matching Obama’s ad spending in the battleground states, this has not been the case. In Ohio, Obama has aired three times as many spots as Romney, and more than twice as many overall in all the key states. In 2008, Obama outspent McCain 5 to 1 down the stretch. This year has not been quite as high a ratio, but the heavy imbalance has remained. Arguably, the Obama ads have also been more effective in part due to their cavalier disregard for the truth.
President Obama has just capped off a very strong fundraising month in September, pulling in $184 million with the DNC. Romney has not released his fundraising for September, though it can be safely estimated his numbers will badly lag the president’s given the downbeat reporting on his campaign and its problems for most of the month.
The president may need that cash advantage down the stretch now that the battleground map seems to have expanded. To get to 270 Electoral College votes (269 may be enough if the GOP maintains its hold in the House), Romney needs to win North Carolina (15), where he now leads; Florida (29); Virginia (13), where he is about even; and Ohio (18), where he has moved closer. This gets Romney to 266. He would then need one more state — Colorado (9) or Iowa (6) are probably his best chances for victory. If Romney cannot win Ohio, he needs to come up with 21 or 22 Electoral College votes among Colorado (9), Wisconsin (10), Nevada (6), Iowa (6), and New Hampshire (4).
There are no opponents to Obama in America except a bunch of vastly outnumbered racists. Obama can not lose the election! Never! No, fellow Democrats I am not scared of losing and neither should you be! Search for the truth. I tell you things and I always ask you to verify what I say. I told you yesterday that there are no dissatisfied people in America. You can go and visit any state at all. No dissatisfied person there. No one at all. There are only supporters of Barack Obama except for a few crazy constitution clingers. Everything is okay.
By Obama, I think Obama will win in a 57 state landslide. Any talk of his defeat is merely an insane prattle. The fact is that as soon as Obama’s opponents reach the voting booths, we will besiege them and slaughter them. Wherever Obama’s opponents go in the New Socialist Worker’s Paradise of Amerika they will find themselves encircled by billions of Obama supporters. The Tea Partiers will be burnt. Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan will be buried. We are going to tackle them. We are going to hit them with shoes! Obama’s opponents will soon be committing suicide by the thousands as they realize that Obama can not lose.
Uncle Harry? Tell us about the time you beat up Joe Lewis… that’s a swell story!
All 57 states will do their patriotic duty and vote George Bush out of office again just like they did in 2008.
Let’s see your tax returns.
Dear Uncle Harry:
You forget to mention the anticipated massive resurrection of the dead on the morning of Nov. 6, at which time the departed will migrate en masse to the nearest polling place. People from Chicago let me this is a commonplace occurrence.
Richard, great report, but already dated. Romney now ahead on RCP.
Yes- when Gallup switched from registered voters to likely voters today, Romney went from 3 down to 2 ahead in its survey, enough to move him into the lead on RCP. Other national polls out today also good- IBD, PPP, ARG, Reuters-Ipsos.
May it be so. But if the polls were f*#$ed last week and the week before that, they’re f*#$ed now as well. I doubt whether the 91% who don’t respond to polls have suddenly started to respond. There does certainly seem to be something in the air, as the Regressive herd starts to panic and wet their knickers. And I do take courage from reports like the one that says Ohio (Oiho?) has purged 490,000 dead and double registered people (mostly Democrats, of course) from their voter rolls. But something very odd is up with these broad poll swings. Maybe it’s Glenn Reynolds’s “preference cascade.” I hope so. But I don’t think these pollsters have much of a handle on the electorate this time. I hope that breaks for Romney, but we’ll have to wait and see.
They were effed in favor of Obama, so they are likely still effed in favor of Obama, and he is still losing.
Obama has slung so much mud at Romney and cannot pull away; why? Because we know he is a failure, we just need an alternative. Romney is doing that just fine. I am willing to say this will be the election of 1980, not 00 or 04.
THese alynsky socialists always overplay their hand. From its Bush’s fault, to Romney is a liar to daylight between us and isreal to changing or making law from the executive branch to you didnt build that. Just like Carter, americans recoil from socialism like our hand was placed over a flame.
We all see it out here, all us dummies. We know what to do. I will make a prediction that Barry won’t even break 180 electoral votes. He is running ads in IL for chr*sts sake-he pulled 60% here last election.
Roger, as John Podhoretz writes, the polls are just too volatile.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/the_day_polling_died_avC02WOQrbvvohrTLZwgAI
And anyway, perhaps there’s some measuring of people who are finally answering their phones? Everyone, left and right, are sensing the Obama meltdown. I don’t doubt the precious “Undecideds” are getting ready to vote for the winner (as they always do) and this time it’s Romney.
But we’ll have to see what the polls look like after the next Romney-Obama debate to really have a clue.
What a ride, though, eh?
An Préachán
there may have been some past elections when polls were useful. Not this one.
They are now simply another tool in the msm’s arsenal for stamping marxism into the country permanently. And they are no more reliable now than they were two weeks ago either. Look at the fool for the Slimes who simply ignores any poll he doesn’t like and concludes (scientifically of course) that Romney has improved his chances by 4% from 21% to 25%. And he is the MOST respected poll interpretor, at least according to the left. So all of the polls are gargage, period.
The trend may be marginally useful, but if it the trend doesn’t make sense in the context of events, it too is useless.
These things are simply too simple to manipulate, and the stakes are too great for any of them to be believable. Could Rasmussen be bought? Of course he can. Anybody can be bought when the capos come calling with their horse heads.
As with everything else they touch, the leftists have ruined the American tradition of election polling.
About now, Obama is hoping that he can hang onto 47%
It looks like Obomber will declare military operations against Iran just for political gain, he needs to neutralize Romney in time for the next debate:
http://warsclerotic.wordpress.com/2012/10/09/us-sources-us-israel-plan-october-surprise-others-israel-can-do-it-alone/
Romney could wrap this thing up with one simple question to Obama in these coming debates. Much like Reagan’s “Are you better off now than you were….” question.
Romney simply needs to ask Obama, in front of all America: “Who have you helped in the last four years without also having harmed somebody else?”
Think about it… Green Energy without mentioning Solyndra? Can’t go there.
GM/Unions, without mentioning screwing other share/stock holders. Can’t go there.
The mid-East, without mentioning the muslim brotherhood or a dead US ambassador. REALLY can’t go there.
Obamacare? (Oh, brother…) Fast and Furious? (Rolling eyes…) Can’t go with either of those. Trying to save Big bird? Nope, nothing there.
I honestly can’t think of anything of substance this guy has done that has not eventually produced harm on a large/severe scale.
Making the house of a communist/socialist a national monument is not something I would call substantial or proper. I call it pandering.
Just one question at the right time could wrap this thing up.
WHY is Romney’s campaign failing to air more TV commercials?
As you point out, they are overwhelmed 3:1 in Ohio!?
What is Romney’s camp doing with all that money if they are not buying ads in the crucial state of Ohio?
Here in northern Virginia, a battleground area in a key state, the TV ad ratio seems to be 5:1 in Obama’s favor.
2012 will be the last hurrah for the racist Republicans.
Romney’s surge is entirely due to increased support from white people.
But you gringos are a shrinking, fading minority. You will be a powerless minority by 2041.
You have already lost California, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado … soon you will lose Texas as well. Once you lose Texas, then the racist GOP will be finished forever.
That Romney is doing well in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin is to be expected. They are a bunch of ignorant racist rednecks down there, living in trailer parks. But they are disappearing. We are the future.
And if you embrace the policies of Mr. Obama, your future will be one of misery.
Our problem is not with anyone’s skin color … it is with how people like you promote the “outsourcing” of our future as individuals – not to Asia – but to an elite few who can’t tell the difference between each of us and a statistical average:
https://www.facebook.com/notes/ritchie-the-riveter/outsourcing-is-the-problem-but-not-the-way-you-might-think/416571378389947
We “gringos” are showing you the path to a sustainable future for anyone who exercises the initiative to walk it … you seek to tear up that path, and replace it with a pothole-filled sidewalk that leads to a cliff … for all you seem to know how to do, is steal the future from others, not create a better one for yourself and your neighbors.
you won’t be taking anything…call me gringo, wetback? you have forgotten that the brown skin people of which you speak have no loyalty to our country, but american patriots do. once we export the illegals from our society, we will be coming for racist leftist la raza members like you, and we’re not going to be putting you on a bus.
Lol ….. Well actually UP here in Ohio we generally have houses with indoor plumbing. So go shove your race baiting race / class hating bullsh*t up your la Raza posterior.
And what will you do when you’re dumped like so much offal when the Islamic Caliphate no longer needs you and your drug cartels to sow chaos and disorder?
Will you pay the Jizya? Will you convert (and still live a poor life because you’re not Arab or Iranian)?
Just what is left for you, when the Mujahideen throw you in the garbage?
blah blah esperno que no los estatos unidos is muy bien y usted tiene nade in su cabezo.
From The Orlando Sentinel
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/os-siegel-letter-to-staff-20121009,0,3816086.story
“Orlando time-share mogul David Siegel has told his 7,000 employees that if Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney is not elected, he may have to lay people off — and might even retire and take their “opportunities” with him to a beach in the Caribbean.”
Well, another day has passed, and our resident left-wing troll “Cynical Wonder” has yet to make an appearance.
For months now, “Cynical Wonder” had been telling us that Obama is a shoo-in to win, and it’s futile for us to even try to oppose Obama’s re-election.
But he mysteriously disappeared the night of the Obama-Romney debate.
“Cynical Wonder”, if you’re reading this: Please come back. I’d hate to think I bought a whole new can of Raid Flying Insect Killer for nothing.
In this my second attempt at a comment, the first thing I’d like to do is reiterate my view that the fact that 67 million people saw the Denver Debate with their own eyes and not through the biased lens of a reporter is the reason Romney is making such a hugely positive impact with voters. The polls are swinging for Romney like they’ve been caught in a Florida hurricane.
More and more, people from all parties of persuasion seem to be realizing what good for nothing, Obama sucking, corrupt to the gills, leftist extremist pukes the vast majority of the media truly have become.
With most critically thinking Americans, NBC, CBS, ABC and everything in between, from the New York Times to the Chicago Tribune to the L.A. Times to the Maddows and the Matthews carry about as much weight with the sane part of the voting public as a feather in outer space.
Switching from media bias to sheer nonsense, when I see Obama’s new Big Bird commercials, I get the distinct feeling I’m on another planet.
If desperate men do desperate things, the poster child for that saying can be seen in the slugs making Obama’s new ads.
Big Bird in high definition not only is laying the big turd in focus groups, but also with the public.
And as I’m sure you’re aware, these ads are despised by the good folks who’ve built the Big Bird brandto mean something uplifting and good and honest and wholesome. Which is the reason the owners of the Big Bird name have demanded that Obama stop running these infantile, churlish spots.
It’s like the sound track in the Obama campaign offices has become the old Twilight Zone music. The perfect presenter for the next Obama spot is Rod Serling talking about the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge.
Dumb. That defines Obama’s Middle East policies up to now. By any fair measure, they’re a total failure. And Obama can’t stop talking about Big Bird.
Obama’s seen four of America’s best and brightest raped, tortured and dragged through the streets of a foreign country and Obama talks about policy bumps in the road. And Big Bird.
We catch Obama lying about a video causing those four murders of Americans in the Libyan Consulate, and Obama talks about PBS, (Big Bird) a show paid for with borrowed money from China.
Meanwhile, Obama, in four insufferable years, has left our children and grandchildren etc., with 16 trillion in debt (and rising); 6 trillion in Obama-squandered money that largely was paid through schemes like Solyndra to Obama money bundlers. If a tavern customer ran up that kind of bar bill, you’d call him an alcoholic. Obama: drunk with power? Ya think? I’d say his action of late define him as off the deep end, up the creek without a paddle, in way over his head.
Maybe he was three sheets to the wind when he couldn’t lift his eyeballs high enough to look at Romney face to face during the debate. Perhaps that’s what Al Gore was musing about when he speculated Obama was a one man self demolition derby because he was too high; DUI. If you’re a supporter of the anointed one, I don’t see how you could have watched Obama’s performance without putting a paper bag over your head. It was a crime.
He really should be drying out in a Denver jail.
Debating Under the Influence.
Romney still hasn’t learned to keep his mouth closed in key situations. Remains to be seen if his current flip-flop on abortion legislation will hinder the campaign.
Tough choice though: turn off the base and try to appeal to women and independents. Or continue to hold his hard core anti-abortion stance and get hammered by the other side as being against womens’ health care.
Reading the actual quote, it doesn’t appear to actually be a flip-flop, but rather an acknowledgement that all the pro-life legislation is on the state level. The impact of the President is mainly due to judicial appointments, and while there is a Human Life Amendment movement, the President has no direct involvement in Constitutional Amendments.