Justin's Political Corner

There are 12 battleground states that deserve close attention as Democratic President Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney go head to head in Tuesday’s historic election:

– THE BIG THREE –

OHIO (18 electoral votes)

Perhaps the crucial battleground, the state ravaged by industrial decline has trended Democratic after narrowly deciding the 2004 election for George W. Bush. But Romney has made a strong play for white, working-class voters. No Republican has claimed the White House without also winning Ohio.

RealClearPolitics.com polling average: Obama up 2.3 percent.

2008: Obama 51 percent, McCain 47 percent.

FLORIDA (29 electoral votes)

The biggest battleground of all, the Sunshine State had the starring role in the chaotic 2000 election and is now struggling to handle large numbers of early voters. State voter ID laws, which required a photo ID to vote, limited some early voting, but parts of the laws have been curtailed by federal courts.

RealClearPolitics.com polling average: Romney up 1.2 percent.

2008: Obama 51 percent, McCain 48 percent.

VIRGINIA (13 electoral votes)

2008 saw Virginia vote Democratic in a presidential election for the first time since 1964. The state’s affluent and populous north next to Washington has turned blue, but a battle rages in the area around Norfolk, home to several large military bases. With military cuts looming, Romney may have an edge.

RealClearPolitics.com polling average: Romney up 0.5 percent.

2008: Obama 53 percent, McCain 46 percent.

– THE CLOSE CALLS –

COLORADO (9 electoral votes)

Fueled by an influx of migrants from liberal California and elsewhere, the traditionally Republican mountain state has been trending Democratic. It voted for Obama in 2008, but the incumbent is finding it hard to hold together his winning coalition of women, youth and minorities here.

RealClearPolitics.com polling average: Obama up 0.5 percent.

2008 result: Barack Obama (D) 53 percent, John McCain (R) 45 percent.

NEW HAMPSHIRE (4 electoral votes)

With the race on a razor’s edge, even tiny New Hampshire is getting extra love from both candidates wooing notoriously independent Granite State voters. Obama has campaigned here this year at least six times, and Romney eight.

RealClearPolitics.com polling average: Obama up 1.0 percent.

2008: Obama 54 percent, McCain 49 percent

IOWA: (6 electoral votes)

America’s bread basket took Obama to its heart in 2008, when he won the Iowa caucuses to launch his Democratic juggernaut. Romney won this year’s Republican contest — until a recount declared Rick Santorum the winner. Romney is holding tough; its top newspaper just endorsed him, after backing Obama four years ago.

RealClearPolitics polling average: Obama up 1.3 percent.

2008: Obama 54 percent, McCain 45 percent.

NEVADA (6 electoral votes)

America’s gambling capital was sucker-punched by high unemployment and the mortgage foreclosure crisis, and while jobless numbers have improved, they remain high. Obama has built big leads among Hispanic voters, but many Nevadans say he has not turned the economy around fast enough.

RealClearPolitics.com polling average: Obama up 2.4 percent.

2008: Obama 55 percent, McCain 43 percent.

NORTH CAROLINA (15 electoral votes)

Obama won this traditionally red southeastern state by just a few thousand votes in 2008. The president came out in support of gay marriage this year, while North Carolinians approved an amendment banning it. The issue simmers.

RealClearPolitics.com polling average: Romney up 3.8 percent

2008: Obama 50 percent, McCain 49.5 percent.

WISCONSIN (10 electoral votes)

Long in the blue column, Wisconsin is now in play, following a tumultuous recall battle over the Republican governor that forced the party to build up a vast political machine there. It’s paying off. Obama’s comfortable lead has shrunk. And Romney’s running mate, Paul Ryan, is from the Badger State.

RealClearPolitics.com polling average: Obama up 4.0 points.

2008: Obama 56 percent, McCain 42 percent.

– POTENTIAL SURPRISES –

PENNSYLVANIA (20 electoral votes)

Polls in this rust-belt state like next-door Ohio showed a safe bet for Obama six weeks ago, but the race has narrowed. Pennsylvania elected a Republican governor and Republican senator in 2010, and support for fracking for natural gas, which Romney advocates, is high in western Pennsylvania.

RealClearPolitics.com polling average: Obama up 4.6 percent.

2008: Obama 55 percent, McCain 44 percent.

MICHIGAN (16 electoral votes)

Nominally Romney’s home state, Michigan hasn’t voted for a Republican since 1988 and Obama is still the strong favorite here despite recent polls suggesting a tight race. Obama’s bailout of Detroit auto giants GM and Chrysler, opposed by Romney but credited with saving the key industry in the state, could be the deciding factor.

RealClearPolitics.com polling average: Obama up 3.0 points.

2008: Obama 57 percent, McCain 41 percent

MINNESOTA (10 electoral votes)

One recent poll raised eyebrows when it showed Obama leading by only three points in the normally safe blue territory of Minnesota. There is little doubt the state has moved more to the center from the liberal left in recent election cycles but the “Land of 10,000 Lakes” hasn’t voted for a Republican since the Richard Nixon landslide of 1972.

RealClearPolitics.com polling average: Obama up 5.0 points.

2008: Obama 54.1 percent, McCain 43.8 percent

h/t: The Raw Story

Casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, who has donated more than $50 million to Republicans, is now pressuring his casino employees to vote for Mitt Romney. According to the Huffington Post, Adelson’s Management at Las Vegas Sands Corp. “has been distributing voter guides friendly to Republican nominee Mitt Romney and critical of President Barack Obama to its casino employees in Las Vegas.”

While the so-called Nevada “issues guides” don’t specifically endorse Romney, the pamphlets strongly imply that Obama’s policies could cause workers to lose their jobs. “Too much of big government doesn’t just affect our company; it affects our employees, our customers, and our shareholders,” the guide says. “Voting is an important way for you no only to do your civic duty, but to protect your job.” It goes on to misrepresent Obama’s health, tax, and energy policies — while painting Romney’s proposal in a favorable light.

Adelson’s efforts to elect Romney would greatly bolster his bottom line. A report from the Center for American Progress Action Fund found that Romney’s tax proposals, which call for massive tax cuts for the rich, corporate tax reforms that will encourage the offshoring of profits, and the elimination of certain investment taxes, could save Adelson more than $2 billion in taxes.

And while Adelson would benefit from Romney’s reforms, the workers receiving his brochures could see a $2,000 tax increase if Romney were to keep his plan to maintain current levels of revenue.

h/t: Igor Volsky at Think Progress Elections

The election could be won or lost weeks before Election Day thanks to early voting that has now spread in one form or another to more than half the states. With early voting kicking off Thursday in the critical swing state of Iowa, and with more swing states following close behind, including Ohio next Tuesday, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney will be banking real votes long before the frenetic final days of the campaign.

“I am forecasting in this election cycle that about 35 percent of the vote will be cast before Election Day,” George Mason University professor Michael McDonald, who researches early voting behavior, told TPM. “We know 78 percent of all votes in Colorado were cast prior to Election Day in 2008, and it probably will be around 85 percent in 2012. The election will essentially be won or lost before Election Day unless it’s a tight, narrow, razor-thin margin.”

With more than one-third of the votes nationwide expected to be cast early, Romney’s already shrinking window to erase President Obama’s current lead in public opinion polls before Election Day is closing even faster. While the presidential debates, for instance, remain Romney’s last best hope to shake up the current dynamics of the race, many voters will have already cast their ballots before all the debates are held. Time is running out.

The prevalence of early voting in 2012 — either via in-person early voting or no-excuse absentee voting — continues the modern trend. Some 30.6 percent of the electorate voted early in 2008, but the percentages were much higher in battleground states like Florida (51.8 percent), Nevada (66.9 percent), and North Carolina (60.6 percent).

Ohio, where Obama is surging in public opinion polling, is poised for the biggest boost. Recently the Obama campaign successfully blocked the state in federal court from eliminating three early voting days. But the bigger news is that election officials, for the first time, are sending every single registered voter in the state an absentee ballot request form.

One exception where the rules have moved in the opposite direction is Florida, which cut its number of early voting days from 14 to eight. The effects of the change are still unclear, however, especially as individual counties might offer longer voting hours.

Democrats dominated early voting in 2008 thanks to high enthusiasm among the base, an unprecedented ground game, and a huge cash advantage over John McCain. This time around, Republicans say things will be different: They have vastly improved resources thanks to stronger fundraising and more assistance from outside groups.

The Romney campaign says it has met many of McCain’s 2008 grassroots benchmarks weeks ahead of schedule. Among the stats cited, officials say they’ve knocked on one million more doors already than in the entire ‘08 campaign and made seven times as many phone calls as Team McCain volunteers had at the same point in the race. Conservatives groups and Republicans also ran successful early voting programs in victories across the country in the 2010 elections, though it should be noted that the midterm electorate is demographically much more conservative than the expected presidential electorate.

For its part, the battle-tested Obama campaign is counting on its own turnout operations to counter the expected advantage in late advertising dollars from Republicans and their allies.

There are early indications in first-to-vote Iowa that the Obama campaign’s work may be paying off. While the GOP has made gains in voter registration since 2008, Democrats have made five times as many absentee ballot requests, a figure that is alarming some state Republicans.

Former Iowa Republican Party chair Craig Robinson, who now observes politics in the state closely as editor of The Iowa Republican blog, said Romney’s early vote efforts in the Hawkeye State so far fall far short of where John McCain’s were four years ago.

“There was quite a bit of mail being sent out,” Robinson recalled Tuesday. “The McCain campaign was fundamentally sound. I don’t have evidence of that yet from the Romney campaign.”

Robinson said he’s seen no early vote mailers from the Romney campaign so far. He fears Romney has missed the boat on early voting, leaving the Democrats to bank perhaps thousands of votes weeks before Election Day.

h/t: Benjy Sarlin at TPM

Danny Tarkanian is the Republican nominee in a newly created congressional district in Nevada. He also seems to think his opponent has a very good makeup artist. During a speech to a GOP club earlier this week, Tarkanian went into a lengthy rant about how “all these black Democrats” have accused him of making a racist comment.

This is the man Tarkanian accused of pretending to be black:

h/t: Ian Millhiser at Think Progress

During a stop in Elko, Nevada last week, presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) said that he opposes the federal ownership of any public lands.  After stating that he wanted todisband the U.S. Department of Interior (which manages 500 million acres of surface land includingnearly 400 national parks), he responded to a question about a travel management plan in a national forest by stating:

Paul:  I want as much federal land to be turned over to the state as possible—the regulatory approach to tell people how to do and what to say.  So I was essentially other than the other members of Congress from this state — I very early on opposed the dumping of nuclear waste in Nevada, so I want the state to make a decision—

Questioner:  This plan pertains to using ATVs and things like that on federal land.

Paul:  Well, I’d be opposed to that.  I don’t want the federal government dictating to Nevada, period.  I’d rather see the land owned and controlled by the states.

Our federal public lands are important assets for many reasons.  Interior Department lands alone provided $363 billion in economic activity in 2010, some of which goes to states and counties.  Indeed federal lands in Nevada pumped $1 billion into the state’s economy in 2010.

Additionally, public lands are managed for the public good.   They are owned by every single American, and are places we all can go to picnic, hike, fish, and get outside with our families.  They also provide important benefits like clean air and clean water.

Perhaps most importantly, public lands are protected so they can be enjoyed for future generations.  Just imagine what the Grand Canyon would have been like if mining interests and the Arizona Territory had had their way in 1903 and mined it rather than preserved it.

h/t: Public Lands Team at ThinkProgress Green, via CAP Action Fund’s Jessica Good

So what happens after the Florida primary this Tuesday? If indeed we are all in for a long, drawn-out contest, then the next four contests over the next two weeks could turn out to be crucial — and could also contain more pitfalls for Mitt Romney.

As of this writing, the polling in Florida is a mixed bag — some surveys show Newt Gingrich taking the lead after his big landslide win in South Carolina, while others have Mitt Romney still holding on.

If Newt Gingrich were to win the primary, he would likely get a huge national bounce. But if Mitt Romney wins, he can reconsolidate his position as the frontrunner, and retake the campaign narrative.

But as TPM has previously noted about this stage of the calendar, he might need that momentum. Because as it turns out, the next four contests over the two weeks after Florida are all caucuses, which can often be dominated by activists who are more strongly conservative than even a typical Republican primary electorate. Furthermore, Romney would face significant embarrassment to lose even one of them — because he swept them all the last time he ran, in 2008.

In 2008, when John McCain was practically sweeping the primaries, pushing Romney out of the race after Super Tuesday, Romney had in fact built up a decent number of victories: Wyoming, Nevada, Michigan, Maine, Alaska, Colorado, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota and Utah.

But on close examination, there is a clear theme. Of those 11 contests, eight were caucuses.

The three primaries Romney did win were in states to which he had close personal ties: He was born and raised in Michigan, where his father was Governor in the 1960’s; He was governor of Massachusetts; and Utah is both home to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and Romney had been the successful head of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.

As for the caucuses, Romney had emerged as the main conservative alternative to the establishment frontrunner John McCain. But this time around, Newt Gingrich has emerged as the conservative alternative to the establishment frontrunner — Mitt Romney.

So with all that knowledge in hand, let’s take a look at what’s coming up:

February 4 — Nevada caucuses: Fortunately for Romney, this state is still probably a very good place for him, and it is also the very first contest after Florida. But unfortunately for him, they were originally supposed to be one of the contests in the first month (which was supposed to be February) — but after Florida jumped into January, and New Hampshire was threatening to go into December, the national GOP convinced the Nevada state party to go on February 4, right after Florida.

Romney won the 2008 caucuses in a landslide: Romney 51%, Paul 14%, McCain 13%, Huckabee 8%, Thompson 8%, Giuliani 4%, Hunter 2%. One thing that helped him in racking up such a substantial margin was that a quarter of voters were Mormons, a group he took with 95% — but even without the Mormon vote, he still would have won the state caucuses anyway, with a decent-sized plurality of the non-Mormon vote.

The question then is whether Gingrich will be able to harness enough anti-Romney feeling among conservative activists to make a decent showing, or perhaps even pull off a win. And as it turns out, Gingrich’s big financial benefactor, Las Vegas casino owner Sheldon Adelson, may have already given Gingrich a leg-up: Getting the Clark County GOP to schedule a special caucus session later on Saturday night, for religious Jews who won’t caucus earlier during the Sabbath. And not only that, but the site is a school founded by Adelson, and named in honor of himself and his wife.

February 4 through February 11 — Maine caucuses, 24 delegates: Romney could do well here, owing to his status as a New England-based candidate. And notably, he easily won the 2008 caucuses, beating John McCain by a 52%-22% margin. The results will be announced the night of February 11.

On the other hand, one does have to wonder how much of Romney’s victory was also due to his being the anti-McCain option, and whether that same force could come back to bite him this time. Also, there has been a marked rise of Tea Party dominance in the state GOP, as noted by the election of Gov. Paul LePage.

February 7 — Minnesota and Colorado caucuses: Back on Super Tuesday in 2008, Romney won both of these states’ caucuses, as the option for conservatives who were against McCain.

But on Wednesday there arrived some bad news: A survey of Minnesota by Public Policy Polling (D) gave Gingrich a lead over Romney of 36%-18%.

If Romney were to lose both of these contests in one night, that would be a very bad night indeed.

Bonus: Also February 7 — Missouri primary, zero delegates: Because the state law kept this primary on February 7, corresponding with Super Tuesday of the last campaign cycle, state Republican leaders opted to instead go with a caucus on March 17, which would keep them in full compliance with this year’s official primary calendar.

It should also be noted that Newt Gingrich will not be on the ballot in the primary — though he said at the time that this was “not a mistake,” and he was avoiding “beauty contests.” Regardless of whether or not this was true on his part, the bottom line is that this primary won’t matter for delegate math — but of course, we can expect Romney to tout his all but certain victory as a sign of momentum, and to cast light on Gingrich’s disorganization compared to himself.

h/t: Eric Kleefeld at TPM 

When it comes to swing states it’s always been Ohio, Ohio, Ohio. Now it might be Virginia, North Carolina….and maybe Ohio.

In 2008, when then Senator Obama took states no Democratic candidate had come close to winning in decades, there was necessarily some skepticism he could repeat the feat in 2012. Sure, he’d made gains in the south and west. But given the awful current economic circumstances, it stands to reason that the newest states on the redrawn political map would be the first to go — and with a recession coupled with a highly partisan atmosphere, voters would return to their typical corners. Except they haven’t done that yet.

How else can one explain President Obama’s numbers suffering greatly in a place like Pennsylvania, one of the bluer swing states, while he’s remained slightly ahead through most of 2011 in North Carolina, a state he won by less than a percentage point. A look at the numbers now suggests there really is a new map, and it looks like economic and demographic changes have solidified it.

The Center for American Progress (CAP) released a report in late November called “The Path To 270: Demographics versus Economics in the 2012 Presidential Election” by Ruy Teixeira and John Halpin, two Senior Fellows at CAP. The paper lays out the changes in the political makeup of swing states new and old. In an interview with TPM, Teixeira said that the mix of economic performance, education levels and changes in demographics are the chief drivers in redrawing the political battle lines. “The math becomes a bit more forgiving — we haven’t forgotten the old swing states — but there are few more on the map,” he said.

In both the report and the interview, Teixeria pointed to the growing gap between working class and college educated whites as a new fault line in presidential politics. College educated whites “are significantly less likely to dismiss government as a remedy for the jobs situation,” he said. “Anti-government hostility is the best card for the GOP to play with white working class voters.”

A few decades ago, says Teixeria, there weren’t major differences between college educated and working class whites. But the economic downturn of the 1970s solidified the hostility toward government, creating a schism that remains today. So the combination of a struggling economy and attempts to use government to solve problems are doubly unhelpful to the candidate who employs that solution — and in this case that candidate is President Obama. Social scientists like Gallup’s Editor-in-Chief Frank Newport make the argument that the seminal debate in 2012 will be about the scope and role of government, and if the aforementioned trends hold, that could be at one of the President’s chief obstacles to re-election.

Teixera and Halpin echoed that assessment of what’s happening on the ground in their CAP report, describing a confluence of these factors in Virginia in particular. “Virginia is more promising for the Obama campaign, with a solid minority vote, a relatively friendly white college-graduate population, a tight link between growing areas and increasing sympathy for the Democrats, and a fairly decent economic situation,” they wrote.

Other strategists also pushed the importance of demographics as the chief long-term mover, second to economic growth, especially in the western states. But those states also seem to differ greatly — the economy of Nevada, won handily by Obama in 2008, is famously stalled due to the foreclosure crisis. Yet New Mexico hasn’t suffered as much, and continues to be solidly in the Obama column.

It seems that in 2012, there may be a close election determined by a world beyond the suburbs of Philadelphia, turnout in Cleveland and the trends of the Florida panhandle — and how it all plays out might make the new political map a little more permanent.

h/t: Kyle Leighton at TPM 

A judge in Nevada is smacking down “personhood” advocates left and right.

On Wednesday, District Judge James Wilson granted an injunction request by the ACLU and Planned Parenthood against a petition circulated by Personhood Nevada, ruling that it’s too vague and would confuse voters.

The group’s lawyer, birther attorney Gary Kreep, was cagey in the court hearing when asked about the purpose of the petition, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. At one point Kreep said it would prevent “discrimination against the unborn,” and another time noted he could only “speculate” on the possible effects.

Wilson ruled that state law requires the purpose to be clear so as not to confuse voters about what they’re signing. “To me it is not clear,” Wilson said. “It is not capable of being rehabilitated through rewriting.”

Another Nevada judge threw out a similar measure two years ago for the same reasons. That decision was appealed to the state Supreme Court, but by the time the case came up it was too late to collect the necessary signatures to qualify for the election.

Kreep said Personhood Nevada is deciding whether to appeal to the state Supreme Court this time around.

Personhood Nevada called Wilson a “judicial activist” judge in its statement on the ruling, saying that “the people’s voice in Nevada has been silenced by those who profit from abortion the most - Planned Parenthood.”

“Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, and the liberal courts have stifled our ability to engage in free speech, legally maneuvering until me [sic] miss our statutory deadline, and keeping us from exercising our constitutional rights as Americans and Nevadans,” said Olaf Vancura, the president of the group. “We are determined that no matter how long it takes, we will not be silenced. The personhood petition will be approved, and we will protect all human life in the state of Nevada.”

h/t: Jillian Rayfield at TPM