Romney

President Obama is running statistically even with former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in 12 key swing states and is slightly ahead of Texas Gov. Rick Perry and businessman Herman Cain, according to the USA Today/Gallup poll released Friday.

The poll, which looks at both national trends and at the races in what everyone considers to be the 12 battleground states that will likely determine the 2012 election, paints a picture of Obama facing a tougher road to reelection than an incumbent should.

But the president, a Democrat whose approval rating has been in the low 40-percent range in recent months, can take heart from the poll’s findings that he is running better against specific Republican candidates than he does against a generic Republican, indicating that when faced with a real choice, voters seem to prefer Obama to Romney, Perry or Cain.

According to the poll, Obama is tied among national voters with Romney at 47% and leads Perry 49% to 45%. In its first measurement of Cain, the poll found Obama ahead 48% to 46%. The poll was taken before reports surfaced that two women received financial settlements after complaining that Cain had sexually harassed them.

But overall, the results show all three GOP candidates running strongly against Obama. The national results are based on interviews with 1,056 adults taken Oct. 26-27; the poll has a margin of error of plus or minus four percentage points.

But the American electoral system is based on indirect representation rather than direct democracy. The Founding Fathers feared the unmediated passions of the mob and wanted to ensure that wiser heads would have a greater role. Hence the creation of the presidential electors who actually vote for president based on the popular vote in their home states.

Because of the electoral college, where a candidate’s support exists is often more important than just how many people back him or her. A candidate needs 270 electoral votes to win, and in 2012, Obama can pretty much count on winning enough states to give him about 196 electoral votes, while the GOP candidate starts with about 191. In the center are 12 states, worth 151 electoral votes for which both parties will spend most of their money and resources fighting. Those states, all won by Obama in 2008, are Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin.

According to the poll, Romney is at 47% to Obama’s 46% in those 12 states. Obama does better against Perry, 49% to 44% and Cain, 48% to 45%. Those results are based on interviews with 1,334 adults, from Oct. 20 to 27. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points.

The polls generally show that the presidential race is extremely competitive at this point, a year before Election Day and two months before the GOP begins voting for its presidential candidate. But Republicans also have an advantage in the enthusiasm arena, according to the poll.

Overall, 47% of swing-state registered voters and 48% of all U.S. registered voters said they are extremely or very enthusiastic about voting. But Republicans were more eager both nationally and in the swing states. Nationally, Republicans were ahead 56% to 48% over Democrats. In the swing states, the GOP was ahead in the enthusiasm race 59% to 48%.

EUCLID, Ohio — Campaigning in a key battleground state, Mitt Romney said Monday that President Obama has failed in his promises to reduce unemployment, improve the nation’s housing market and right the nation’s economy.

“At the convention, the Democratic Convention about four years ago, the president got up and spoke about hope, change and together we can do anything. But he hasn’t lived up to those kinds of expectations,” Romney told hundreds of people gathered in a heavy gauge-stamping warehouse just outside Cleveland. “The American people are good-hearted people with the desire for good things to happen to one another and we hoped that this president would be able to be successful. I sure did. And he has not been. I know how many people are struggling. I want to do my very best to help them and I’m convinced that my experience will help me get this economy going and get people back to work and good jobs, which they need.”

Romney made his remarks while campaigning in Ohio, a state that has picked every president since 1964 and where Obama officially kicked off his reelection bid Saturday. The GOP candidate’s comments, six months before the election, come the same day that two new polls showed the men in a statistical dead heat, and on the day that Obama launched a $25-million monthlong television ad buy in Ohio and eight other swing states.

Romney did not mention the ad or Obama’s appearance here over the weekend, but he argued that by Obama’s own benchmarks, such as getting unemployment below 8%, and other indicators such as a drop in median incomes and rising healthcare, food and fuel costs, the president’s policies have not worked.

“Americans in the middle class are feeling squeezed, even if they have a job. And obviously most of our citizens have a job, but boy, these are tough times,” Romney said.

A Romney backer who introduced the presumptive GOP nominee said Obama does not understand the middle class.

“I’m tired about hearing him talk about the middle class as though he knows anything about us,” said state auditor Dave Yost to loud applause, before reeling off a list of vacations the Obamas have taken since coming to the White House.

Yost said the tally was 17 vacations, including one last Christmas that cost $1.5 million. “Mr. President, that’s not middle class. And you stop lecturing us about our lives!”

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Original source: Romney focuses on Obama’s economic record in Ohio

MORRISVILLE, Pa. — Trying to quilt together a patchwork of states that would give him the White House, Mitt Romney ricocheted around the country Sunday, arguing that he represented true change and that reelecting the president would mean a continuation of the status quo: chronic unemployment, high energy prices and increased dependence on government.

Romney said Obama had promised much but had fallen “so very short.”

“Talk is cheap, but a record is real and it’s measured in achievements,” the Republican nominee said, bundled against the cold at his rally in a farm field.

INTERACTIVE: Battleground states

“The president thinks big government is the answer,” Romney added. “No, Mr. President, more good jobs, that’s the answer.”

At that, tens of thousands of people who had gathered for the rally began chanting, “Send him home!”

The Romney appearance in the suburb of Philadelphia was his first in Pennsylvania since September, when he visited a military college. His wife, Ann, and his running mate, Rep. Paul D. Ryan, have appeared here more recently, with Ryan visiting on Saturday.

Campaign officials clearly hoped that Romney’s appearance, and Republicans’ recent ad spending, would turn a state that Obama handily won in 2008.

Aside from one poll that shows the race tied, all other recent surveys show Obama comfortably holding onto Pennsylvania. But a win for Romney would offset a loss in Ohio — where Obama has held onto a steady, if extremely narrow, lead in polls — or losses in a collection of less-populated states such as Wisconsin, Nevada and Iowa.

INTERACTIVE: Outside spending shapes 2012 election

Though Romney has largely ignored Pennsylvania in recent months, his spokesman argued that his visit less than 48 hours before election day was perfectly timed because the state did not have early voting.

“It’s a remarkable juxtaposition here that Mitt Romney will be in the suburbs of Philadelphia today and, you know, four years ago, Barack Obama was in Indiana,” senior advisor Ed Gillespie said on ABC’s “This Week”, referring to the Republican-dominated state that Obama ultimately won in 2008. “When you look at where this map has gone, it reflects the change and the direction and the momentum toward Gov. Romney…. The map has expanded.”

Democrats countered that the appearance in Pennsylvania, which has gone Democratic for two decades, was one of desperation as Romney grasped for a path to the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency.

“They understand they are in deep trouble,” Obama senior strategist David Axelrod said on “Fox News Sunday.” “They’re looking for somewhere, desperately looking for somewhere to try to dislodge some electoral votes to win this election, and I can tell you, that’s not going to happen.”

The scene in Pennsylvania reflected the drama at the end of the hard-fought presidential contest. Two cranes hoisted massive American flags; fireworks closed the rally.

“This audience and your voices are being heard all over the nation. You’re being heard in my heart,” Romney said. “People of America understand, we’re taking back the White House because we’re going to win Pennsylvania.”

Romney also made what has become a familiar pitch from both candidates as election day nears.

“Now let’s make sure every single person we know gets out and votes on Tuesday,” he said. “What makes this rally and all your work so inspiring is because you’re here because you care about America. This is a campaign about our country and the future we’re going to leave to our children. We thank you and we ask you to stay at it all the way till victory on Tuesday night.”

Romney also campaigned Sunday in front of large crowds in Iowa and Ohio, where polling shows Obama holds a slim edge. And he held a late-night rally in Virginia, where the race appears to be even.

A Des Moines Register poll released Saturday showed the president ahead by 5 percentage points in Iowa. But Republicans noted that the same poll four years ago overstated Obama’s support in the state, which he won by nearly 10 percentage points.

In addition to six electoral votes, Iowa holds symbolic significance for both candidates: Its first-in-the-nation caucuses launched Obama’s bid in 2008 and proved difficult for Romney in 2008 and this year.

Republican Gov. Terry Branstad said while introducing the GOP nominee in Des Moines that the state that made Obama would take him down.

“Iowans feel betrayed. Almost a sense of — not only disappointed, but almost a sense of betrayal that our principles of sound budgeting and responsible government have been ignored by this administration for four straight years,” Branstad said, adding: “It’s time for a change. It’s time for you to go back to Chicago.”

Romney, speaking at the Hy-Vee Hall, urged his supporters to reach out to disenchanted backers of the president and persuade them that a change in direction was vital for the nation’s future.

“I need your vote; I need your work; I need your help. Walk with me. We’ll walk together. Let’s begin anew. I need Iowa,” he said.

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