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In 2012, a dozen states will decide whether President Obama is elected to a second term. The PurplePoll focuses exclusively on the Purple Electorate - likely voters only in these swing states. Updated regularly throughout the 2012 election cycle, the PurplePoll will follow leading political indicators and track new issues as they emerge. President Obama currently holds leads against the two top candidates in the GOP field. He leads Mitt Romney by 4 points (47% to 43%) and leads Rick Santorum by 2 points (46% to 44%). President Obama’s performance against Romney has been consistent since December, with leads ranging...

Mitt Romney edges Barack Obama among registered voters in swing states, according to a new Gallup/USA Today poll. By “edge,” I mean barely edges — by a single point. Even with that, though, Romney fares far better than his competitors in the same polling: Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney essentially ties Barack Obama in the nation’s key battlegrounds, a USA TODAY/Gallup Swing States survey finds, while rival Newt Gingrich now trails the president by a decisive 14 percentage points.That reflects a significant decline by the former House speaker since early December, when he led Obama by three points. …In...

As the Republican presidential candidates traipse through the early primary and caucus states, President Obama and Vice President Biden are keeping a tight focus on a handful of swing states that are among the biggest prizes in the 2012 general election contest. Obama and Biden are keeping an official travel schedule that conveniently plunks them in battleground states that may decide the election. Biden will head to Ohio on Thursday to talk about a bread-and-butter issue for the middle class: making college more affordable. On Friday, he’ll appear in the Philadelphia suburbs for a similar speech. Winning Ohio and Pennsylvania,...

A survey of 12 swing states that Barack Obama carried in 2008 now finds the president losing to both Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich there. USA Today-Gallup -- polling registered voters in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin -- found Obama trailing Romney 43-48, and Gingrich 45-48. Because Obama is expected to hold the big states of California, New York and Illinois, he maintains a popular-vote advantage nationwide, where he leads Gingrich 50-44, and edges Romney 47-46. But the Electoral College math would deliver the White House to Republicans if...

A study released by the centrist group, The Third Way, reveals that more than 800,000 Democrats have left the party in 8 battleground states since 2008.ABC News: "The numbers show that Democrats' path to victory just got harder," said Lanae Erickson, the report's co-author. "We are seeing both an increase in independents and a decrease in Democrats and that means the coalition they have to assemble is going to rely even more on independents in 2012 than it did in 2008."Amid frustrating partisan gridlock and unprecedentedly low party-approval ratings, the number of voters registering under a major party is...

President Obama’s uphill battle to re-election is getting steeper. A report released today by the centrist think-tank Third Way showed that more than 825,000 voters in eight key battleground states have fled the Democratic Party since Obama won election in 2008. “The numbers show that Democrats’ path to victory just got harder,” said Lanae Erickson, the report’s co-author. “We are seeing both an increase in independents and a decrease in Democrats and that means the coalition they have to assemble is going to rely even more on independents in 2012 than it did in 2008.” Amid frustrating partisan gridlock and...

Today Purple Strategies released the results of their first PurplePoll of the 2012 election cycle revealing challenges for President Obama, but problems for Mitt Romney and Rick Perry as well. Unlike other polls, the PurplePoll focuses exclusively on the 12 states that have decided presidential elections for the past dozen years, and will do so again in 2012: Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin. Eight of these states won by President Obama in 2008 have swung between Republican and Democratic candidates since 1996. The four others (NH, MN, PA, and...

<p>RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — President Barack Obama's disapproval rating has soared to 54 percent in Virginia, a battleground state the Democrat took from the Republicans to win the White House in 2008 and will likely need to carry next year to win re-election, a new poll released Thursday shows.</p>

The 2012 Election Will Come Down to Seven States National polls are nice, but Electoral College math is what matters..Article Comments (47) more in Opinion ». Email Print Save ↓ More . .smaller Larger By LARRY J. SABATO Straw polls, real polls, debates, caucuses, primaries—that's the public side of presidential campaigns 14 months before Election Day. But behind the scenes, strategists for President Obama and his major Republican opponents are already focused like a laser on the Electoral College. The emerging general election contest gives every sign of being highly competitive, unlike 2008. Of course, things can change: Ronald Reagan...

One of the most annoying things for me has been the fact that every time a vote has been held in congress in the past, the top half of Michigan would be shown in blue on a congressional vote map, along with the Detroit area. If anything, the top half of Michigan is more like the nation’s south, than it is like the state’s southeast. We are resourceful, tolerant people who have finally had enough. I live in the First District of Michigan, and am involved in the primary elections which are quickly approaching, next Tuesday. There is one Democrat...

CINCINNATI — State officials reported on Friday that March's jobless rate is now at 11 percent. That's up from 10.9 in February. The rate is now the highest since September 1983, ONN's Lot Tan reported. "It's so sad, it just devastates me. I cried for a long time. It was a major part of my life," said Peggy Abbott. For nearly 20 years, Abbott dedicated her life to her job. She worked hard, started at the bottom and worked her way to the top. "I made it all the way up to office manager, and I was making good money,"...

The Columbus Dispatch reports that Democrats switching to the Republican party outnumbered Republicans switching to the Democratic party by about 7-to-1 as of Tuesday in Cuyahoga County, which includes Cleveland. In 2008, the figures favored Democrats 5-to-1. In Hamilton County, which includes Cincinnati, about 9 times as many Democrats have switched parties.

Feel the realignment. -In Colorado a recent Rasmussen poll found his approval at 45/53. Research 2000 found his favorability at 46/47 in January. -In Florida Rasmussen found his approval at 45/54 and Quinnipiac’s latest found it at 45/49. -In Indiana Rasmussen has his approval at 44/54 and Research 2000 finds his favorability at 46/49… -In Nevada Rasmussen finds his approval at 46/54. We found 44/52 in in January. There are nine states in all but I’m giving you numbers for four where there’s a Democrat in trouble in the local Senate race and The One will be expected to —...

You have to hand it to the White House: It is at least consistent in sending the absolutely wrong message to voters pondering whether to keep Democrats in control of Congress in the coming midterm election. Even the body language is all wrong. Receive news alerts Sign Up Salena Zito RealClearPolitics election 2010 pa sen Democratic Party Republican Party Barack Obama [+] More On Tuesday, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs mocked Sarah Palin's crib notes on the palm of her hand. The next day, President Obama told Business Week that he didn't begrudge gazillion-dollar bonuses for executives of banks...

Former Arkansas GOP Gov. Mike Huckabee is deploying his grass-roots activists and raising money for the campaigns of conservative candidates in states that are key to a 2012 presidential run. The effort is run by Huck PAC, the former governor’s political action committee, which has 6,000 members spread across all 50 states, 46 of which have volunteer state coordinators.

It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that after controlling the state for years, the Ohio GOP got slaughtered in 2006 and again in 2008. In addition to losing the state's top offices, the party lost a U.S. Senator, four U.S. House seats and its majority in the Ohio House of Representatives over the past four years. But timing is everything in politics, and Ohio once again looks like a barnburner in next year's midterm elections.

WASHINGTON -- As conspiracy theories go, this one met the legacy test: Skeptics remained convinced that ACORN, the community organizing group, tried to steal Ohio's 2008 election, even though authorities declared the election clean. So be forewarned, because what follows reawakens old suspicions -- and Republicans say there's a good reason. In a nutshell: ACORN, under attack for other misdeeds, plotted privately to help elect liberal congressional candidates in several 2008 Ohio races, a previously undisclosed ACORN political plan shows. This is the first time that ACORN, formally called the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, has been linked...

NEW WATERFORD, Ohio – If Ohio is the nation's political weather vane (and you can make a good case that it is), then a two-election trend toward Democrats may be over. “The problems for Ohio are all created in Washington,” says Bill Watkins, owner of The Original Mario’s pizza shop on East Main Street here. “Bailouts, stimulus money, cap-and-trade have only hurt our economy, not enhanced it.” Earlier this month, President Obama and his policies took a hit in the Buckeye State. A Quinnipiac University poll showed the president’s job-approval rating dropped from 62 percent to 49 percent, and Ohio's...

Voting rate dips as older whites stay home About 63.6 percent of the nation's eligible voters cast ballots in November WASHINGTON - For all the attention generated by Barack Obama's candidacy, the share of eligible voters who actually cast ballots in November declined for the first time in a dozen years. The reason: Older whites with little interest in backing either Barack Obama or John McCain stayed home. Census figures released Monday show about 63.6 percent of the nation's eligible voters, or 131.1 million people, voted last November. Although that represented an increase of 5 million voters — virtually all...

A new Public Policy Polling survey looking at how likely voters for this fall’s election view Barack Obama finds his approval rating at just 48%, with 46% disapproving. Obama’s reviews are highly polarized with 95% of Democrats but only 9% of Republicans giving him good marks. His overall numbers are weak due to poor numbers among independents- 52% of them say they disapprove of Obama’s performance with only 38% giving him favorable ones.