Obama Prospects Improve as Swing State Economies Improve
By Mike Dorning - May 22, 2012 9:24 PM ET
From extra shifts at auto and steel plants in Ohio to office buildings rising in Northern Virginia, the geography of the U.S. economic rebound is providing an edge to President Barack Obama’s re-election.
The unemployment rates in a majority of the 2012 battleground states are lower than the national average as those economies improve. Coupled with the growth of adult minority populations in those states, the trends create a higher bar for presumed Republican Party presidential nominee Mitt Romney in his quest to unseat Obama.
“There are jobs out there,” said Chris McGiffen, 47, of Zanesville, Ohio, who moved to the state in 2010 from St. Louis to look for work. He found a job as a welder at Columbus Castings, a steel foundry that makes products such as undercarriages for railroad cars, he said.
Nine states switched from supporting Republican President George W. Bush in 2004 to Democrat Obama in 2008. Leaving out Indiana, which both sides say is trending toward its Republican tradition, the remaining eight are again shaping up as the central election battleground.
Those eight states -- Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia -- have a combined 101 electoral votes. Romney must win at least 79 of those electoral votes to prevail if all other states run true to their 2004 and 2008 partisan preferences.
Must Take Florida
Obtaining those 79 electoral votes is a daunting task for Romney, in part because it is impossible for him to achieve without claiming Florida. Winning all the other states would still leave him seven votes short. And even with Florida, losing Ohio and any one of the other smaller states -- New Mexico, Iowa or Nevada -- keeps him shy of the 79 figure.
Local economies are “important,” said Xu Cheng, a senior economist at Moody’s Analytics. A model that Moody’s developed based solely on state-by-state economic data and past voting behavior forecast the outcome in 2008, he said.
A projection Moody’s made May 21 based on the model predicts an Obama victory with 303 electoral voters, with the Democrat carrying Ohio and Virginia and the Republican winning Florida. The economic data for the remainder of the year comes from Moody’s state-by-state forecasts.
An external shock to the economy such as a disorderly European debt default or a Middle East conflict that spikes oil prices could upend the state-by-state economic projections and alter the electoral forecast, Cheng said.
more:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-23/obama-prospects-improve-as-swing-state-economies-improve.html
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