[EL] States in Play

[Marty Lederman]

Does anyone know if the campaigns are making significant investments in any
states other than Ohio, Virginia, Florida, Wisconsin, Colorado, Nevada, New
Hampshire, and Iowa -- and, I suppose, possibly Michigan, North Carolina
and/or Pennsylvania?

Or are those 8-11 states where all the action (that is, uncertainty) is?


On Tue, Aug 28, 2012 at 6:17 PM, Rob Richie <rr at fairvote.org> wrote:

> Doug,
>
> This provides a chance for FairVote to do some mild chestbumping.
>
> In December 2008, we released a report on what we called the shrinking
> battleground that we saw as having been demonstrated in the 2008 election.
> Dan Tokaji was filling in for Rick that day in blogging, and below is how
> he linked to it on the election law blog -- introducing our report by
> saying "countering the conventional wisdom..."
>
> What we saw in 2008 was what this election cycle has confirmed: that in a
> really close year, the number of states with a chance of tipping the
> election had in fact decreased in 2008 rather than increased. The fact that
> Barack Obama won by more than 7%  gave an misleading impression of some
> states being in play that in fact wouldn't have been in play if the
> national margin had been more like it had been in 2000 or 2004.
>
> Missouri and Indiana are states that COULD have been competitive this
> year, with relatively small shifts toward Democrats, but instead they seem
> to have shifted slightly the other way. Indeed, that seems to be the
> pattern. Most states that show a partisan shift are shifting farther away
> from the 50-50 competitive line rather than toward it.
>
> As it is, most analysts see fewer than 10 real swing states right now -
> perhaps as few as 7. None are surprises, based on the 2008 data. And none
> of the non-swing states are surprises either -- if I were to pick on state
> that I would have thought would be seen as more competitive in 2012 than
> most people say it is, I would say Minnesota.
>
> See more in the report linked below.
> Rob
>
> http://electionlawblog.org/?m=200812&paged=3
> “2008′s Shrinking Battleground” <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=11667>
> Posted on December 5, 2008 5:37 am <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=11667>
> by Dan Tokaji <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=5>
>
> Countering the conventional wisdom, FairVote argues in this press release<http://fairvote.org/tracker/?page=27&pressmode=showspecific&showarticle=230> that
> “2008 marked a record low in the number of competitive states since 1960
> and a record high in the number of completely non-competitive states.”
>
> On Tue, Aug 28, 2012 at 5:37 PM, Doug Hess <douglasrhess at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I know this is not a psephology list, but I wonder why MO and IN are
>> viewed by many to be strongly Romney states. Granted, IN going for
>> Obama in 2008 was surprising (at least to me, and I suspect others).
>> And MO in 2008 was won by McCain by the skin of his teeth. But why are
>> both states considered out of Obama's reach now (see Nate Silver's
>> summaries of polls and some predictions in the link)?
>>
>>
>> http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/25/aug-25-an-above-average-likely-voter-gap-for-romney/#more-33647
>>
>> Doug
>> _______________________________________________
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>> http://department-lists.uci.edu/mailman/listinfo/law-election
>>
>
>
>
> --
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>
> Rob Richie
> Executive Director
>
> FairVote
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