PLANK JUNE 18, 2012
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The past month has seen the momentum of the 2012 presidential election shift significantly. The national race is now in a virtual dead heat, and most key swing states are within the margin of error. And most important, it appears that Mitt Romney has expanded the playing field to include some states previously thought to be securely in President Obama’s column—including, in my view, Pennsylvania.
I base these conclusions on an analysis of surveys conducted since the beginning of June. Here’s what they show. (When there are multiple surveys, as there are in most cases, these figures represent averages.)
Obama
Romney
Obama Margin
Obama 2008 Margin
National
45.2
44.7
0.5
7.3
Nevada
48
42
6
15.5
Colorado
46.5
45.5
1.0
9.0
Iowa
46
47
(1)
9.5
Wisconsin
46.0
45.0
1.0
13.9
Ohio
45
48
(3)
4.6
Virginia
47.7
45.0
2.7
6.3
North Carolina
46
48
(2)
0.3
Florida
47.5
47.5
--
2.8
Wisconsin is an unexpected addition to the list. It’s hard, though, to think of a state whose politics are more volatile this year. The most recent presidential surveys may reflect the extraordinary Republican mobilization that kept Scott Walker in the governor’s mansion, and these passions may cool. Or they may not.
In my view, which I first ventured last month, it makes sense to consider adding Pennsylvania to the list, even though Obama carried it by more than 10 points in 2008. The latest Quinnipiac survey gives the president a 6-point edge (46-40), but his support remains well below 50 percent, as it has in most previous surveys for the past six months. Obama’s job approval among Pennsylvanians stands at only 46, versus 49 percent who disapprove of his performance as president. Forty-eight percent think he deserves to be reelected, while 47 percent do not. And 56 percent are dissatisfied with the way things are going in their state, versus 43 percent who are satisfied.
At this point, the odds still favor an Obama victory in Pennsylvania this November. But the evidence suggests that Romney has a shot in the state—and Romney himself seems to think so. It’s no accident that the Romney bus tour goes through Pennsylvania. Keystone State voters can expect to see a lot more of him this summer, and their final verdict could be a game-changer.
3 comments
As a Pennsylvanian, I would venture a guess that Pennsylvania will not go Republican this year unless lots of other states (such as Wisconsin, Ohio, Colorado, Florida et al.) go with it. My reason is not based on Presidential horse-race surveys in mid-May, but on the fundamentals of Pennsyvlania Presidential-level politics come every November going back 25 years or so. Democrats are guaranteed a large turnout in their favor in the urban cores of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, as well as in the smaller urban areas of the Commonwealth (Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, Allentown/Bethlehem/Easton, Harrisburg, Erie). Republicans are guaranteed a large turnout in their favor in central and northern Pennsyvlania outside the respective urban areas of their states. The swing factor are the Philadelphia suburbs, whose share of the electorate has grown during the past 20 years as Western and Northeastern Pennsylvania have bled people and Congressional districts. During the 1980's, these were quintessential suburban professionals, who voted Republican in large part due to disgust with corrupt machine politics in Philadelphia and their general disaffection with state-level economic disfunction but also had moderate-to-liberal social views. Despite an early infatuation with Bill Clinton, they quickly turned against him but were then brought back to the fold by the excesses of the Gingrich Congress. Since that time, as the Republican Party has careened further and further rightward, they have increasingly become solid Democratic supporters in Presidential elections, whose votes gave Pennsyvlania to Gore, Kerry and Obama. While the Philly suburban voters are still capable of backing Republicans for Senator (witness Pat Toomey) or governor (witness Tom Corbett) in off-year elections, they are also generally turned off by the national GOP and its representatives. This year, they are increasingly turned off by the state-level GOP as well, which has pursued major budget cuts to both primary and higher education but has steadfastly refused to impose taxes or fees on the shale gas industry that is booming in the Western and Northern parts of the state -- indeed, Governor Corbett is unusually generous with public subsidies to the gas industry. The result has been a 38% approval rating for Corbett and an even lower one for the Republican-controlled state legislature, with much of the resistance coming from the Philly area which lacks the natural gas deposits but has plenty of educational instutitions that bear the brunt of budget cuts. Mitt Romney is not just disinterested in separating himself from the state GOP -- he actively embraces it as a way to affirm his conservative bona fides in the state. The Obama campaign is sure to highlight this, as well as Romney's reiteration of hard-right social issues stances, for Philly-area voters as the campaign season progresses. If history is any guide, that will be enough to put Pennsylvania in Obama's column even if there is some additional defection to Republicans from culturally conservative Western PA Democrats on Election Day (beyond the many who already defected to McCain in 2008).
- wildboy
June 18, 2012 at 1:32pm
I'd put more faith in wildboy's detailed analysis of the Pennsylvanian political landscape than I do in Galston's handwringing.
- AaronW
June 19, 2012 at 4:34am
Follow-up articles could include, "In my view, it makes sense to consider adding [New York/California/Massachusetts, etc.] to the list, even though Obama carried it by more than [ ] points in 2008 ..."
- misterpibb
June 19, 2012 at 9:48am