Battleground: These go to eleven
Posted: Monday, September 15, 2008 9:15 AM by Mark Murray
Filed Under:
States
The Washington Post whittles down the map to 11 states. "As in the past two campaigns, four big states -- Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio and Florida -- are expected to dominate the attention of the candidates. Democrats won the first two in both 2000 and 2004; Republicans won the other two both times. Additionally, there will be battles in a group of smaller states now seen by the campaigns as most vulnerable to shifting sides. Five states that went for President Bush in 2004 are now high on the list of potential Obama states: Iowa, New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada and Virginia. Two states that went for Sen. John F. Kerry are top targets of McCain's campaign: Wisconsin and New Hampshire."
More: "Obama advisers say they still have their sights on a number of Republican strongholds, among them Georgia, North Carolina, Indiana, Montana and North Dakota. With the benefit of a massive fundraising operation -- the Obama campaign announced Sunday it raised a record $66 million in August -- and huge numbers of volunteers, the Democratic nominee has the luxury to compete in states this fall that past campaigns would have had to abandon"
COLORADO: Early voting promises to be a major force in battleground state Colorado, where both Obama and Palin appear today. Per the Denver Post: "Already, nearly 1 million Colorado voters have requested mail-in ballots -- a 35 percent increase from four years ago. The ballots are expected to be sent out as early as Oct. 3, according to the secretary of state's office."
FLORIDA: McCain and Obama are both vying heavily for veterans in the Sunshine State, notes the Miami Herald. "The U.S. Census Bureau lists at least two million current or former active-duty military people in Florida. In Escambia County alone, veterans constitute 20 percent of all voters." And the Herald profiles embattled GOP mega-fundraiser Harry Sargeant.
IOWA: A Des Moines Register poll out over the weekend shows Obama opening a double-digit lead (52-40) in a state that Bush won by less than a point in 2004.
MICHIGAN: "Michigan's history of racial tensions is tugging against its Democratic tendencies, giving Barack Obama fits in a state where almost everything else -- a soaring unemployment rate, a shrinking auto industry and a depressed housing market -- potentially benefits Democrats," the AP writes. "The first minority candidate with a serious shot at the presidency is not running as well as his Democratic predecessors among working-class whites in this pivotal Midwestern swing state, partly because of the color of his skin."
MINNESOTA: A poll from the Minneapolis Star-Tribune shows the presidential race deadlocked 45-45. "The poll found that McCain has made gains across the board since a May Minnesota Poll that showed him trailing by 13 points. He has picked up considerable support among men and to a lesser degree among women. He also has boosted his standing with whites, young voters and all levels of household income and education."
NEW HAMPSHIRE: McCain got good day-after coverage in the Granite State for his NASCAR visit. By the way, besides racecar drivers, McCain was also joined by Curt Schilling
NEW MEXICO: Part of an occasional series, the Boston Globe profiles a small town near the Mexico border. "The federal government has poured millions of dollars into barricading the border here, erecting a 15-foot-tall steel fence and bringing in hundreds of new agents to patrol it. But in the village beside the fence, resentment simmers. Residents say they feel neglected by politicians whose focus is on a line in the sand 3 miles to the south, and not on the worsening hardships of the Americans living within sight of it. With New Mexico a swing state in the coming presidential election -- and even more influential as the state with the nation's highest proportion of Latinos -- villagers hope their votes will matter."
OHIO: Salon's Walter Shapiro looks at the ground game in Ohio and finds Obama's race may be a bigger issue than anyone in the media will report.
VIRGINIA: Officials have ordered 200,000 new voter registration forms as they expect a crush of new registrants in the final three weeks before the voter registration deadline. Since Jan. 1, the state's voter registration rolls have swelled by 211,000 people, to 4,796,855.
VIRGINIA: The Richmond Times-Dispatch notes the importance of the Hispanic vote in Virginia. "In Virginia, roughly 149,000 Hispanics are citizens of voting age, making up nearly 3 percent of the state's eligible voters. That makes it the 28th-largest Hispanic voter population in the U.S., according to the Pew Hispanic Center. By comparison, there are 180,000 eligible Asian voters and 1.1 million eligible black voters in the state."
