Mr. Obama Picks Up Three States as Romney Camp Seems to Decline to Fight for Wisconsin and Minnesota

Ohio and Michigan Become Key Obama States

The Dismal Political Economist irregularly presents a forecast of the electoral vote for the 2012 election.  This forecast is not a quantitative model, and does not portend to say where the race is today.  Rather it takes the current polls and trends and subjectively projects where the race might end up in November.  Here is the current forecast, which contrary to most experts, has Mr. Romney ahead.  

		States
Certain		Competitive		Certain		Competitive
Romney		Romney		Obama		Obama
Alabama	9			California	55	Colorado	9
Alaska	3			Connecticut	7	Iowa	6
Arkansas	6	Arizona	11	Delaware	3	Maine	4
Georgia	16	Florida	29	D. C.	3	Michigan	16
Idaho	4	Minnesota	10	Hawaii	4	New Jersey	14
Indiana	11	Missouri	10	Illinois	20	Ohio	18
Kansas	6	Montana	3	Maryland	10	Pennsylvania	20
Kentucy	8	Nevada	6	Massachusetts	11	Washington	12
Louisiana	8	New Hampshire	4	New York	29	Wisconsin	10
Mississippi	6	New Mexico	5	Oregon	7	Minnesota	10
North Dakota	3	North Carolina	15	Rhode Island	4	New Mexico	5
Nebraska	5	Virginia	13	Vermont	3
Oklahoma	7	Wisconsin	10
South Carolina	9	Michigan	16
South Dakota	3	Ohio	18
Tennessee	11
Texas	38
Utah	6
West Virginia	5
Wyoming	3
			Totals
Certain	167		125	Certain	156		90
Competitive	125			Competitive	90
Total	292			Total	246

The states with lines through them are ones where the forecast has changed.  Note that in the previous iteration the forecast moved Ohio and Michigan to the Romney column.  This was based on current polling, plus Mr. Romney’s so-called home state advantage in Michigan, plus the backlash in Michigan for having to have the auto industry bailed out.

The current iteration reflects the fact that the Romney campaign is so far quiet on Wisconsin, and by implication the neighboring state of Minnesota.

Yet as the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel’s Craig Gilbert writes, Wisconsin is a strangely quiet presidential battleground these days and neither campaign is on the air with broadcast television ads.

Why have the presidential ad wars, raging in more than half a dozen other states since May, largely bypassed Wisconsin so far?

Could it be that Wisconsin is not quite the battleground it has been in the past?

“It’s not in the first tier,” said Ken Goldstein, a political scientist who heads Kantar Media’s Campaign Media Analysis Group, which tracks campaign advertising.

He says the campaigns’ TV buys show that Wisconsin, where President Obama leads in the polls, currently ranks behind seven or eight other states in competitiveness -- among them Ohio, Virginia, Florida, Iowa, Colorado, Nevada and New Hampshire.

And as the except above notes, Mr. Obama has had a steady lead in the polling.  So for now Mr. Obama gets those two states, along with New Mexico where Mr. Obama’s lead among Hispanic voters put him ahead.

This leaves Michigan and Ohio as the possible path for Mr. Obama to get re-elected.  Those states, and Florida are likely to hold the key.