In examining the presidential map for 2012, there are eight swing states and five battleground states to keep an eye on, Stuart Rothenberg writes. New Hampshire, Virginia, Florida, Ohio, Iowa, Wisconsin, Colorado and Nevada are likely to be true swing states this cycle.
North Carolina and Pennsylvania certainly haven’t performed as swing states. Obama won the Tar Heel State by three-tenths of a point while winning by more than 7 points nationally. And because the Democratic presidential nominees lost the state by more than a dozen points in 2000 and 2004, it’s difficult to believe that state changed so dramatically and fundamentally to make it a swing state.
Of course, both parties have advertised there, and Democrats certainly would like to expand the playing field by putting North Carolina, the site of the party’s national convention in September, into play. So it’s worth watching.
The same goes for Pennsylvania, which hasn’t gone Republican in a presidential contest since 1988. Still, it’s usually close enough — recent Democratic nominees generally did about 4 points better in the Keystone State than they did nationally — to pay attention to it.
In addition, the president’s problems with working-class whites and older voters combine to make Pennsylvania more interesting than usual.
Presidential margins in 2000 and 2004 in both Michigan and Minnesota aren’t all that different from those in Pennsylvania, and both of those states in the upper Midwest could see some action as Republicans seek to add normally Democratic-leaning states to the playing field. But if Obama is running even or very close in those states, he probably has bigger problems in true swing states.
Lois Lerner, director of exempt organizations for the IRS, arrives for a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on the investigation of the IRS' targeting of political groups. Lerner invoked her Fifth Amendment right to not testify and caused a protest from some committee members when she offered an opening statement and engaged in dialogue with members before invoking the right.
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