For those of you scoring at home or alone, Barack Obama's gonna lose the state of Florida. A Qunnipiac poll has Obama down by six points to Mitt Romney, 47-41, the most definitive lead Romney has over Obama in a swing state.
Six points is not an insurmountable lead, but everything about the state works against Obama. America's wang swung for Obama only by 51% in 2008, after two elections of going red (one of which you may remember). The state's older, white demographics went against Obama even during the 2008 surge, and Obama can't count on any offsetting enthusiasm this time around.
Plus, Republicans will drive into Tampa on two Cadillacs this September for their national convention, and the VP speculation over Marco Rubio, one of the few Republicans who can open his mouth without alienating Hispanic voters, has done nothing but good for the party. (Meanwhile, expect "Who's Rick Scott?" to be one of the most uttered phrases at the RNC.) Jewish ambivalence toward Obama's Israel policy, combined with the fact that Romney took Bibi to prom or something, will help the GOP nominee as well.
This is modestly good news for Romney, as he must take Florida to win. If all blue and red states vote according to their 2008 preference, Romney must take 79 electoral votes from some combination of Florida, Ohio, Colorado, New Mexico, Virginia, Iowa, Nevada or North Carolina to win—or, two-thirds of all the swing states. Nabbing Florida's 29 electoral votes only gets Romney slightly more than one-third of the way there.
But this news is hardly disastrous for Obama, especially given improving economies in other swing states. "Five of the Bush-turned-Obama states had lower unemployment rates in April than the 8.1 percent national average," Bloomberg reports, "and in three of the states joblessness had dropped below 7 percent." Iowa, New Mexico, Ohio and Virginia especially are showing rebounding economies. That, "coupled with the growth of adult minority populations in those states," creates a pretty clear field for Obama, and also explains why Florida might be a one-off victory for Romney: Florida was hit hard by the housing bubble, and doesn't share the minority growth, favoring instead older whites. Those are not factors replicated in a majority of the swing states.
Romney could still win Nevada (six electoral votes) and North Carolina (15), but that only brings his count to 50, 26 short of the number needed. Without capturing another major swing state like Ohio (18), or turning a lean-blue state like Pennsylvania (20), Romney might be defeated by the very thing he thought would take him to the White House: the economy.
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