(Bounced) Florida now gone for Obama

Long meandering thought from me:

First North Carolina, now Florida. While I've been saying they've been gone for a while, the eighth straight poll giving Romney a lead makes it pretty irrefutable. The President will not publicly concede it, because it would look terrible. But Romney is enjoying a close but consistent lead now.

The next two most Romney-loving states, Virginia and Colorado, may start dropping in line soon. Rasmussen gave us another R+ poll in the Old Dominion, and PPP could only get O+1 in their most recent paid poll released Wednesday. Not to mention the Kimball Poll and Gravis release earlier in the week. (Sorry this post is train-of-thought).

Ohio of course is the big beast. Until pollsters start showing a more realistic D/R/I, we will keep getting results like the new Fox poll giving Obama a 46-43 lead while bleeding independents to Romney by twenty-four points which of course totally jives totally. Romney has quietly picked off other states and closed the gap in a plethora of light-blue ones in the two weeks since the first debate, now rising to 261 electoral votes on RCP's latest chart- 9 short of beating the President (gaining the aforementioned Virginia and New Hampshire today).

Wisconsin and Ohio are trading places with smaller margins for the President back and forth. If it remains a tight race it would not shock me to see both go to the winner with a margin of a half-point or less between them.

I need to repeat something I've said in posts, in the comments, and on twitter: this is not about Romney hitting 270- it is about Obama keeping 270. In the polling averages, he is. In my projection, he isn't. But the difference between RCP and AOSHQDD is now just 18 EVs (Ohio). The President has lost North Carolina, Indiana, Nebraska's 2nd, Florida, and is watching Virginia slip away, Colorado by a slight margin as well, and now New Hampshire. His "firewall" states are now reduced to Nevada, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Ohio- states he still leads in on averages, but wherein Romney has made serious gains. A collapse in the first two, he is an ex-President. Wisconsin? One-termer. Ohio? Hello, President Romney. There are a lot of fires the President must continuously put out now. Some, he's stayed on top of...while he was still making Romney fight for Florida, Virginia, North Carolina and the weak two (CO/NH). Now that the race is going to shift into these new battlegrounds, there is little room for error for the President. If he starts to slip in any of the following routes: Wisconsin Ohio Nevada-Iowa Michigan, he is done. The map has shrunk for him and now things get interesting. Now is the time for boldness, and looks like Romney-Ryan is starting that up, upping ad buys in Boston (targeting New Hampshire perhaps to keep it as a weak pickup/strengthin Romney's new margin there), Michigan, and sending Ryan to Western Pennsylvania.

There could still be a 'game changer' at this point back into the President's favor, but the debates don't look like it, as PPP and even Marist's whack polling have shown no bounce for him (and in the case of Rasmussen's report about tomorrow, a negative one). What I stressed with Drew in that shoddy podcast was this: look at all the polls, look for the trends, check the crosstabs. All three are leaning Romney, it is up to us to keep them going that way.

Update:

posted by CAC at 03:21 PM

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