[EL] States in Play

Tue Aug 28 15:36:46 PDT 2012

Yes, they're really useful, but do they reflect where the campaign (and
independent) $$ are being spent?

On a related question, Silver has written, I believe, that the genuinely
"undecided" vote is vanishingly small, and that therefore the vast majority
of resources are being devoted to turn-out efforts.  Anyone know if that's
the case?

On Tue, Aug 28, 2012 at 6:32 PM, Doug Hess <douglasrhess at gmail.com> wrote:

> I think Nate Silver's charts and maps (I assume they are his) on the right
> hand side of his blog at the NYT tells the story very well.
>
> Douglas R. Hess, PhD
> Washington, DC
> ph. 202-277-6400
> douglasrhess at gmail.com
>
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>
> On Tue, Aug 28, 2012 at 6:27 PM, Marty Lederman <lederman.marty at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> 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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>>>> Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu
>>>> http://department-lists.uci.edu/mailman/listinfo/law-election
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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>>>
>>> Rob Richie
>>> Executive Director
>>>
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>>
>>
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