Quote:
Originally Posted by Swaggs
But, anyone want to take a stab at picking out which states, that Gore and Kerry did not win, that Obama or Clinton would win? I am not as confident as others that the Dems will "steamroll" the Republican nominee. The best scenario that I can foresee is that Obama or Clinton pick Richardson as their VP candidate AND McCain does not win the Rep. nomination, then Richardson could help swing New Mexican/Arizona/Nevada/Colorado. Does anyone actually see the Dems chipping away any Southern States (Florida? Arkansas?) or somewhere like Iowa or Missouri?
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I think the conventional wisdom is that the overall temperature of the election determines which are the swing states. If the popular vote is looking close, then you likely have a similar list of "up for grabs" states as last time.
If, like some believe (not me, really) the Dems are going to come into this general election with a lot of swing voters in their pocket, then you might see a few states like Ohio or Nevada actually start out as fairly comfortably blue, and the swing states will shift slightly to the right. If that unfolds, then the electoral calculus can turn into a tough one for the GOP, where they would have to end up winning every one of the newly-defined swing states.
Another major wild card issue is immigration, which plays pretty differently in the southwest than in other parts of the country. If it plays a major role in the general election (as I suspect it will) then you could see some movement among specific states that doesn't simply track the national D/R split over issues like Iraq or economic policy.
My guess is that the Dems only take a true deep south state if they win handily and it's really an electoral landslide. It's possible they pick off Louisiana (for regional reasons) or I guess Arkansas (since it's traditionally pretty close), but by and large I don't think they win anything in the south unless they are winning the country pretty easily. I also suspect that a Dem victory in some of the states with a heavy military presence (I'm thinking Missouri here especially) are less likely, even though the votes were close last go-round.