Granted it is still early in the Summer, however, we’re over the July 4th hump so it’s onward toward August when more and more Americans actually begin paying attention to this process. Examining the Electoral College map over the past couple months has given some optimism to President Obama since it showed he was still well ahead in terms of the states he needs to win. In the last 30 days, however, there has been a shift in these estimates with Mitt Romney now leading in several important swing states.
Report from the Examiner:
Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee running against President Obama in November, continues to lead in a sufficient number of states to win the election. At this time, Romney would get at least 298 electoral votes if the election were held today. Six states, which are Maine, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Nevada, and Oregon are too close to call. In these states one candidate might lead by less than the margin of error in the reliable polls, but neither candidate has a majority.
A look at the map, at the left, shows it is looking more red and this trend is gradually moving in that direction as we get close to election day in November. I expect the continued unpopular nature of Obamacare, given it being upheld by the high court, will further energize conservative and tea party movement support for Mitt Romney. Those pink states will become more red and don’t be surprised to see the swing states go red.
The most solid states going for President Obama right now are Vermont, New York, Delaware, Maryland, his home state of Illinois, Hawaii, and California. These states total must over 100 electoral votes, or a similar number to those states won by Michael Dukakis when he ran against George H. W. Bush in 1988. That is clearly what the trend is starting to show, that this election could look a lot more like 1988 than the 2000 or 2004 scenario that many pundits are predicting.
Check the article for the state-by-state breakdown of how things shake out. The most interesting polling will begin coming in August once we get closer to the conventions and the news cycle becomes more dominated with Presidential politics.
Note: The first version of this post referred to an earlier Examiner.com article. The article reference has been changed and the post updated to reflect the correctly referenced article.
