The New Republic

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In 2008, Obama won a decisive national victory with a diverse coalition of young, minority, college educated, and non-southern white voters. Four years later, Obama’s once-broad coalition has collapsed—but his losses aren't spread equally across a diverse electorate. Obama continues to hold near ’08 levels of support among black and Hispanic voters, but trails Romney by a historic margin among white voters, and particularly white voters without a college degree. READ MORE >>

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After the final presidential debate in Boca Raton, the two campaigns head into the final stretch of what could be one of the closest presidential elections in American history. The instapolls and pundits appear to have resolved that the president was a modest victor in last night's debate on foreign policy, a peripheral issue in a campaign dominated by domestic affairs. READ MORE >>

Judging early voting numbers is always challenging. While the campaigns are indeed “banking” voters, it’s hard to say whether these are partisans who were all but assured to vote on Election Day, or the tougher, marginal voters who might have otherwise stayed home. In a state like Iowa, where the GOP holds a registration advantage, there’s nothing about a strong early voting performance by Democrats that precludes Election Day Republican turnout from leveling the playing field. READ MORE >>

Yesterday, Nate Silver raised the question of whether Obama should concede in Florida, a state where Romney holds a slight but clear lead in the polls. With Obama nursing an equally slight but clear lead in Ohio and more modest leads in Wisconsin and Nevada—states that add up to 271 electoral votes—Florida isn’t as central to the electoral math. READ MORE >>

 The polls show a close race heading into the final presidential debate. READ MORE >>

Last week, Gallup released a demographic breakdown of its likely voter survey, which at that time found Romney leading by 4 points, 50-46. But it found that Romney’s biggest gains were in just one region: the South, where Romney held a massive 22-point lead. Perhaps predictably, this aroused latent liberal suspicions that Obama’s deep weakness in the South was responsible for Romney’s strength in the national polls. But a closer look suggests that the gap between the national and state polls probably isn’t the result of deep weakness in the South. READ MORE >>

Iowa is ground zero for early voting, where more than 300,000 voters or 20 percent of the eventual electorate already cast ballots. Many have observed that registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by a 49-31 margin, giving registered Democrats an early edge of 55,000 in ballots already cast. Democrats hold a smaller 15 point lead in ballot requests, but hold a larger numeric edge of 70,000 ballots.  Is this a sign that Obama is about to sweep to a decisive Iowa victory? So far, the numbers are not inconsistent with a win for either side.  READ MORE >>

Ohio rests at the center of Obama's claim to an advantage in the Electoral College, but analysts offer diverging assessments of the race in the country's most critical state. Some say Obama has a big lead, others say it's a true toss-up and that Romney has the momentum. But what do the polls actually say in the Buckeye State? Here are five things to know. 1)   Obama's lead is small, but consistent  On average, Obama leads by 1.9 points in surveys conducted entirely after the first debate. READ MORE >>