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Washington - A slew of battleground-state polls out Thursday shows a presidential race that has tightened in several key states, echoing national polls that show a bounce for Republican Mitt Romney after his strong debate performance Oct. 3.......All of these states went for Obama four years ago,and if Romney is to unseat the incumbent, he has to win most of them. So, he still has his work cut out for him. The debate Thursday night between Romney’s running mate,Rep. Paul Ryan(R) of Wisconsin, and Vice President Joe Biden is a critical step along the way. Typically,vice presidential debates don’t matter,...

If the presidential election were to play out according to RealClearPolitics' latest polling averages, Mitt Romney would surpass President Obama by 1.0 percent in the nationwide vote. Cue the balloon drop and pop the champagne corks in Boston, right? Not exactly. Under the same current polling scenario, Obama’s relative strength in the battleground states could propel him to victory over Romney in the Electoral College. A candidate has been elected president while losing the popular vote four times in American history (including John Quincy Adams, who in 1824 finished second in the popular vote to Andrew Jackson but was elected...

Rattled, dismayed, and shaken, President Obama's national campaign is divided into two camps: impassive warhorses and anxiety-ridden newbies. The battle-scarred operatives have been doing nonstop psychic triage since the first presidential debate, calming nerves and reassuring the shaken that campaigns have their ups and downs. "This is the first time in this entire campaign some of the new people have seen a bad run," said a senior Obama strategist. "The veterans are telling them they need to ride it out." That became a bit easier around noon on Wednesday when the first patch of internal polls came back from key...

If President Obama wins reelection by three or four Electoral College votes next month, the reason may be simple: noncitizens, mostly immigrants, who don’t have the right to vote. No, I’m not talking about his immigration policy or his popularity with Latinos. Nor does this have anything to do with voter fraud. Rather, an Obama victory could hinge on a quirk in the Constitution that gives noncitizens, a group that includes illegal immigrants and legal permanent residents, a say in electing the president of the United States. As required by Article I and the Fourteenth Amendment, the decennial census, which...

WASHINGTON (AP) — When it comes to electing the president, not all votes are created equal. And chances are yours will count less than those of a select few. For example, the vote of Dave Smith in Sheridan, Wyo., counts almost 3 1/2 times as much mathematically as those of his wife's aunts in northeastern Ohio. Why? Electoral College math. A statistical analysis of the state-by-state voting-eligible population by The Associated Press shows that Wyoming has 139,000 eligible voters — those 18 and over, U.S. citizens and non-felons — for every presidential elector chosen in the state. In Ohio, it's...

(MAP AT LINK) Karl Rove's commentary on this week's Electoral Map updates: "Seven states changed status since last week's Electoral College map, with four moving in Mitt Romney's direction and only three moving toward Barack Obama. "Mr. Romney saw Georgia move from 'lean' to 'safe' Romney, New Hampshire change from 'lean' Obama to 'toss up,' and New Mexico and Pennsylvania both shift from 'safe' to 'lean' Obama. "Mr. Obama saw Oregon shift from 'lean' to 'safe' Obama, Wisconsin change from 'toss up' to 'lean' Obama, and Arizona move from 'safe' Romney to 'lean' Romney. "Mr. Obama is down to 196...

Rasmussen Reports - Electoral College Breakdown Safe Romney 178 Likely Romney 3 Leans Romney 15 Toss-up 95 Leans Obama 46 Likely Obama 21 Safe Obama 180 Toss-up-95 CO (9) FL (29) IA (6) MO (10) OH (18) VA (13) WI (10) Leans Romney -15 NC (15) Leans Obama -46 MI (16) NH (4) NV (6) PA (20)

At least three Republican electors say they may not support their party’s presidential ticket when the Electoral College meets in December to formally elect the next president, escalating tensions within the GOP and adding a fresh layer of intrigue to the final weeks of the White House race. The electors — all supporters of former GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul — told The Associated Press they are exploring options should Mitt Romney win their states. They expressed frustration at how Republican leaders have worked to suppress Paul’s conservative movement and his legion of loyal supporters. “They’ve never given Ron Paul...

Mitt Romney’s campaign went on the air in Wisconsin on Sunday, expanding its advertising offensive against President Barack Obama and making a play for a state that would give Romney some much-needed breathing room on the electoral map. The commercial is the 16th “Better Future” advertisement Romney has released in nine swing states since Obama’s speech at the Democratic National Convention in an attempt to blunt any momentum Obama may have received coming out of the convention. Each ad is specifically tailored for each state and various demographics. “This president can ask us to be patient,” Romney says in the...

What States Changed Electoral College Voting Rules

Former vice president Al Gore is calling for an end to the Electoral College — the system that cost him the presidency in 2000. Gore said that many voters who live outside the dozen or so battleground states are cheated by the system that allocates delegates from the state level on a winner-take-all basis. He called for presidential elections to be determined by the popular vote.

Former Vice President Al Gore called for an end to the Electoral College tonight. "It's always tough to amend the constitution, and very risky to do so," he said on Current TV, which he co-founded. "But I think its time, I think our country would be stronger and better if it went according to the popular vote." In the 2000 presidential election, Gore won the popular vote but lost the electoral to George W. Bush. CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO...

Democrat Barack Obama won Iowa handily in 2008, but polls show a much closer race this time around. Those polls, coupled with an analysis of Iowa's voter registration data, offer some very encouraging news for Obama's Republican challenger Mitt Romney.

An Electoral College tie. It's the white whale of American elections: elusive, mythical and never realized. But could it finally happen this year? The likelihood that President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney will each net 269 electoral votes in November, instead of the 270 needed to win, is actually not so farfetched -- and for close observers of the Electoral College system, a tie would set off a wave of constitutional and political mayhem that would make the 2000 Florida recount seem like a tidy affair. Check out the CNN electoral map and calculator Election results in key states would...

Has anyone noticed that Rasmussen has Romney winning or ahead in the 7 Toss Up States? If you scroll over each of the states it looks like a uphill battle for Obama. http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/archive/2012_electoral_college_scoreboard

The Times' Paul West offered a provocative bit of speculation Wednesday: There's a non-remote chance that the presidential election will end up in an electoral college deadlock, with President Obama and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney tied at 269. Wrote West: "All it would take for that to happen: President Obama carries most of the states he won in 2008, including Colorado and Virginia, swing states now rated as tossups. Mitt Romney holds the states that John McCain won last time, recaptures Republican Indiana and North Carolina and carries five swing states that are current tossups, Florida, Ohio, New Hampshire,...

Why the GOP nominee has a slight edge in the one poll that counts Suppose that this November’s presidential election is so close that one candidate wins the popular vote and the other wins the Electoral College (and thus the election). Which candidate, Mitt Romney or Barack Obama, or neither, holds an edge in the Electoral College system for choosing U.S. presidents? Though his advantage is small, I believe it belongs to Romney. My analysis begins with what I call a “political quotient.” I’ve constructed this device to measure a person’s political views quantitatively. Higher PQs correspond to more liberal...

Last week, I wrote a piece suggesting that Mitt Romney's path to the presidency wasn't necessarily narrow. Rather, the breadth of that path will depend on "environmental" factors that could ultimately push him well past the 286 electoral vote ceiling that has seemingly been imposed upon the Republican party since 1992. On the other hand, Ron Brownstein suggests that this ceiling is an outgrowth of demography and changing coalitions, and is largely etched into our electoral map. This has created a “blue wall” consisting of “the 11 states from Maryland to Maine (except New Hampshire); the three West Coast states;...

Our Constitution is under constant attack.1 One of the most pernicious attacks is being waged by those who seek to override the constitutional provisions under which The States, as political entities, elect the President; and to replace it with a national popular vote (NPV) under which inhabitants of major metropolitan areas will choose the President. What Form of Government Did We Create In Our Constitution? Before you can see why it is so important that The States elect the President, and why the NPV is so execrable, you must understand how our “federal” government was structured and intended to operate....

(UPDATED WITH ADDITIONAL VIDEO) A national group that wants the popular vote — not the electoral college — to decide presidential races began airing an ad in Kentucky cable markets targeting U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Senate GOP leader. The 30-second spot paid for by the group Support Popular Vote urges Kentuckians to “send Mitch a message” because McConnell has opposed the concept of moving to a national popular vote system for the presidential race. The ad is airing in Time Warner markets across Kentucky. cn|2 is a division of Time Warner. During a December speech to the Heritage Foundation,...