2012 Presidential Election, Swing State | featured news

Restore Our Future, the super PAC backing Mitt Romney, released a new radio ad Friday knocking President Barack Obama for his handling of the economy and calling into question the Obama campaign's repeated attacks on Romney and Bain Capital. The new spot, titled "Imagine," is part of a $1 million radio ad campaign and will air from July 27 to Aug. 2 across swing states Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

Nationally, the economic picture is decidedly dismal — a sullen state of affairs that has led many political observers to conclude that President Obama is an underdog in his bid for a second term.
But in the 12 (or so) swing states — where Democrats and Republicans will spend the lion’s share of their time and money in the 100 or so days between now and Nov. 6 — the economic picture is considerably sunnier.

A Gallup Poll shows 20% of voters say Mitt Romney's wealth makes them less likely to vote for the Republican... "Enough Americans generally and independents specifically say Romney's wealth makes them less likely to vote for him that it could in theory make a difference at the margins in some key swing states," writes Frank Newport, Gallup's editor in chief.

Republicans’ emerging problem with Latino voters looks even worse when you factor in the electoral college. A look at Latino population trends in swing and key red states shows just how ominous the GOP’s future could be if it doesn’t do something about its current struggles with Latino voters.

The nation's unemployment rate of 8.2 percent may sink President Barack Obama's re-election bid, but one detail brightens his hopes. About 10 battleground states will decide the election, and seven of them have employment levels that beat the U.S. average.

Two of the states are familiar bellwethers, the third a relative newcomer to the swing state category. For either Mitt Romney or President Obama, a clean sweep would guarantee victory on Election Night.

You've no doubt heard of "swing states" -- the ones that swing back and forth between Democrats and Republicans, election after election. Now we're got "swing markets" -- television markets that also go back and forth, and could well determine whether President Obama keeps the White House this year.

The improving economy is swinging the pendulum in President Barack Obama's favor in the 14 states where the presidential election will likely be decided. Recent polls show Obama gaining an edge over his likely Republican challenger, Mitt Romney, in several so-called swing states — those that are considered up for grabs.

New polling shows President Obama and Mitt Romney are nearly tied in three states that are traditional lynchpins in the path to the White House. A Quinnipiac University poll released Thursday shows razor-thin margins between Obama and Romney in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania. President Obama won all three of the states in question in 2008 and no Republican has ever won the White House without taking Ohio, where the president leads Romney 45% to 42%. That margin is just outside the 2.7% margin of error.

Three years after his surprising wins in Southern states, President Barack Obama's re-election campaign is doubling down in the region, hoping to turn changing demographics into electoral wins and offset potential losses in traditional swing states next year.