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Highlands Ranch, Colo. -- From the glittering lights of Nevada casinos to the magnificent vistas and booming tech corridor of Colorado, the wide open spaces, big skies, and big aspirations of Western voters on both sides of the aisle have taken center stage in the 2012 presidential election. As President Obama and Republican Mitt Romney prepare to meet Wednesday in their first face-to-face debate at the University of Denver, the candidates have lavished attention and resources on the two Western swing states that could shape the outcome of the race. With 38 days left until the election, the economy and...

WAYNE, Pa. — Mitt Romney declared Pennsylvania a battleground during a mid-morning rally here Friday, despite public polls showing him well behind in the race for the state’s prized 20 electoral votes. “I’ve got a little secret here and that is that the Obama campaign thinks that Pennsylvania is in their pocket. They don’t need to worry about it,” Romney said during a visit to a military academy in the Philadelphia suburbs. “And you’re right and they’re wrong. We’re going to win Pennsylvania and we’re going to take the White House.”

Certain media polls indicating Obama is ahead of Mitt Romney by as much as 10 to 12 points in swing states seem to spell disaster for Romney, but what they really say about the Obama campaign may just surprise you? The absurdity of the skewed sample models in those polls is one thing, but what conservatives need to understand is that polls skewed to heavily favor Democrats logically point to one very important fact - Obama is in big trouble. For one thing, Democrats and the liberal media are taking a huge chance by touting polls showing Obama up by...

Unemployment rates rose in more than half of U.S. states last month, the latest evidence that hiring remains tepid across the country. The Labor Department says rates increased in 26 states. They fell in 12 states and were unchanged in the other 12. Unemployment also rose in seven of the 11 key swing states in this year's presidential election. Nationwide, hiring employers added only 96,000 jobs in August, below July's gain of 141,000 and the average of 226,000 jobs a month added in January-March quarter. The U.S. unemployment rate fell to 8.1 percent from 8.3 percent in July. But that...

News the campaign will launch an enormous media offensive on Friday, the day after President Obama accepts the Democratic Party's nomination for a second term. The push will include ad buys in several states that will cost tens of millions of dollars.

Republicans signaled this week that they might have given up hope in two important swing states. TPM Slideshow: Romney Takes The Stage At The RNC The Romney campaign and conservative groups like Crossroads GPS have pulled TV ads in Michigan, Romney’s home state, according to the Detroit News. Nor are the campaign and super PACs running advertising in Pennsylvania, after unleashing a barrage there over the past five months. It is still possible for groups to purchase TV advertising in either state at a later date. The PollTracker Averages show President Obama ahead 48.9 percent to 45.4 percent in Michigan,...

CLEVELAND — If you switched on a television in northern Ohio this week, chances are you saw an ad for President Obama’s reelection campaign. Or two. Or three. Over and over again. Mitt Romney? Nothing. Obama’s Republican challenger has spent much of the summer racing around the country gathering campaign donations to pay for advertising. And the legal restraints that kept him from spending money raised for the general election were lifted a week ago, when the party officially nominated him for president. Yet for reasons that his advisors declined to discuss, Romney has ceded the advertising airwaves to Obama...

Poll: Romney up 3 in Ohio, best showing since June By Justin Sink - 09/05/12 08:25 PM ET Mitt Romney has opened a 3-point lead in the pivotal swing state of Ohio, according to a new poll released Wednesday — the Republican nominee's best showing since June. The Republican ticket garnered support of 47 percent of those surveyed, versus 43 percent for Democrats, according to a poll released by Gravis Marketing. President Obama has led consistently in the polls since June, although that lead has been usually within the margin of error. Meanwhile, 10 percent of voters remain unsure in...

Romney and Ryan are attracting large crowds. So did Sarah Palin. Large crowds are fantastic, but do not an election win. Conservative rags are full of hype in their favor. Liberal rags are full of hype in their favor. Hype does not an election win. There's much bravado in the air on many conservative sites. Much talk of how this is a done deal. How we will win in a landslide. All of this flies in the face of numerous polls and demographic analyses. And while they may be wrong, they may also be right. Either way, we cannot afford...

We can get pretty detail-oriented in our analysis of the polls here at FiveThirtyEight. But sometimes there is also value in applying a simpler approach. One simple thing I've noticed is this: Mitt Romney has held the lead recently in quite a few swing state polls. That wasn't the case in June or July, when Barack Obama held leads in those polls far more often than Mr. Romney did.Right now, our forecast model classifies the 10 most important states in the Electoral College as follows, and in the following order: Ohio, Virginia, Wisconsin, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire...

BEALLSVILLE, Ohio – Seventy-plus men walked out of the ground, overalls and hardhats covered in coal dust, and onto the risers of a stage built for a Mitt Romney speech. To onlookers, mostly press and staffers, the image was stunning. To the 2,600 family members gathered in the gravel parking lot or under tents, eating hotdogs and drinking pop, it was a moment of immense pride. This is what we do, said Tim Wiles: “We make things. We provide energy for the state, food for our families, and businesses are sustained around the county because they make money from...

We've already taken a look at one of our "favorite" polls to analyze. How about another series infamous for sampling issues? The latest survey from CBS and the New York Times covers three swing states won by Barack Obama in 2008, and where Mitt Romney hopes to compete. The polling performed by Quinnipiac for CBS/NYT shows Romney leading in Colorado, within the margin of error in Virginia, and almost so in Wisconsin: Romney is ahead of the president in the swing state of Colorado, 50 percent to 45 percent. The poll shows a key part of Mr. Obama's Colorado coalition...

All these oversampled Democrat polls trying to fool people into believing Obama is doing great in swing states is nothing more than a load of crap. One great example is Ohio, where recently skewed polls have shown Obama with sizable leads over Mitt Romney with an average of 8-11% more Democrats polled than Republicans. Obama’s approval rating in Ohio on Gallup over the first half of 2012 is just 44%. You don’t win states with 44% approval ratings. In other states like Iowa, Florida, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Obama is only at 46% approval. In Nevada, New Mexico Obama’s approval is only...

I’ve got good news and bad news for Hot Air readers today. First, the good news: After a few years of embarrassing sample skew problems in the CBS/NYT polls, the two media outlets have partnered with Quinnipiac, at least for this week’s look at three swing states — Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.  The bad news?  I’m not sure the new partnership improved things. First, let’s look at CBS’ lead on the new poll numbers, which they tout as good news for Barack Obama and bad news for Mitt Romney: President Obama leads Mitt Romney among likely voters in Ohio and...

The world of political punditry seems convinced that the 2012 presidential election will be won in ten swing states: Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, and Virginia. Two other states, Indiana (lean Republican) and Pennsylvania and Wisconsin (lean Democrat) could probably go either way in a close election. If the election is a landslide, as many conservatives, including me, believe, then these thirteen swing states will not matter. Obama will likely get stuck with a group of northeastern states and a smattering of others. If the election is close, however, those dozen states will likely...

President Obama has an overall edge in the 12 decisive battleground states that is measurably greater than his advantage in national polling. The dynamic, which may reflect a combination of lower swing-state unemployment rates and demographic advantages for the president, is causing stirrings of unease among Republicans, even as they emphasize that it is important not to read too much into the state of the race right now. “Obama is concentrating his considerable early resources and messaging in the swing states, and it’s had an impact,” said Mark McKinnon, who served as a media adviser for President George W. Bush’s...

We all know what’s truly important in this election in the minds of America's frequently fickle voters, right?"Horse Dressage!!!"Errr... no."Mitt Romney's Overdue Library Books!!!!"Well... certainly something to consider, but not really what I was thinking."Err... jobs?"Bingo. And thank you. So, how are this administration's policies working out thus far, particularly in those crucial swing states? Unemployment rose in June in six of 10 battleground states that could play a pivotal role in the presidential election, reflecting job cuts in some cases and weak payroll growth in others.The jobless rate climbed a 10th of a percentage point last month in Michigan,...

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President Obama remains marginally ahead of Mitt Romney in a new national CNN/ORC International poll released on Monday, although Romney leads Obama in the 15 states identified by the network as battleground states. Obama leads Romney nationally, 49 percent to 46 percent, with 4 percent of those surveyed saying they would vote for another candidate or neither candidate. That is inside the poll's margin of error, and it is identical to the 49 percent to 46 percent lead Obama had in the previous poll, conducted in late May. It is also similar to the latest Gallup tracking poll, which shows...

As I wrote on Tuesday morning, President Obama’s decision to suspend deportations of some young illegal immigrants should entail mostly upside for him from a political standpoint. Based on polls about his decision and the way that Republicans are reacting to it, the evidence that public opinion is on Mr. Obama’s side is reasonably clear. So I don’t agree with other analysts who have termed the decision risky or puzzling. Mr. Obama has learned this year that being the incumbent at a time when most voters think the country is on the wrong track is not necessarily an advantageous position....