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Fresh worries for Obama in North Carolina, Wisconsin
By Catholic Online (NEWS CONSORTIUM)
May 29th, 2012
Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)
May 29th, 2012
Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)
Not everything is a given in the 2012 Presidential Race. President
Barack Obama received warning signs in a once-promising Southern state
and typically Democratic-voting Midwestern states. Recent, encouraging
economic news may be swept away in the roughly five months before the
election, analysts say.
Iowa is now expected to be tight to the finish, while the previously pivotal New Mexico seems to be drifting into Democratic territory.
According to an Associated Press analysis of recent polls, if the election were held today, Obama would likely win 247 electoral votes to Romney's 206. These results were obtained through campaign spending and key developments in states, along with interviews with more than a dozen Republican and Democratic strategists both inside and outside of the two campaigns.
Seven states, offering a combined 85 electoral votes, are viewed as "too close" to give either candidate a meaningful advantage: Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio and Virginia.
"As of today, the advantage still lies with the president, but there is a long and hard road ahead in this election," Tad Devine, the top strategist to Democratic presidential candidates Al Gore and John Kerry says. Devine isn't directly involved in this year's race.
If Romney wins all the states Republican John McCain carried in 2008 plus North Carolina, as recent trends suggest, he would still need 64 electoral votes to hit the magic number, requiring him to win a majority of the states that are up for grabs.
Obama faces the costly and labor-intensive challenge of defending those states in a much different environment than the one of four years ago.
Big-spending, pro-Romney political committees are certain to be a factor, and already are running television ads in states where Obama is vulnerable, such as Florida.
Obama's early spending, with more than $30 million on advertising before Memorial Day and new glimmers of economic hope across the battleground states demonstrate the size of Romney's challenge.
The past six weeks have been volatile, the race is expected to be close.
© 2012, Catholic Online. Distributed by NEWS CONSORTIUM.