What issues drive the swing state voters?

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/july-dec12/swingstates_07-17.html

State of the Romney campaign

http://washingtonexaminer.com/how-did-vaunted-romney-death-star-break-down/article/2502354

 

Difference in the intensity of the Romney and Obama campaigns

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/18/another-big-difference-between-romney-and-obama-public-schedule/?partner=rss&emc=rss



Poll:  Race now tied in Virginia

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/19/mitt-romney-virginia_n_1685486.html

House Effects

There appear to be systematic tendencies for some polling firms to favor either Obama or Romney.  Nate Silver calls this tendency the “House Effect” of a particular poll and explains the adjustments that are necessary for a political analyst to fairly use the polling result.   http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/22/calculating-house-effects-of-polling-firms/#more-31415

Are current polls of self-identified registered voters oversamplying Democrats?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/18/mitt-romney-polls_n_1680827.html?utm_hp_ref=politics

Independent swing voters prefer Obama's immigration policy 2 to 1
The virulent comments at the bottom of the article are also interesting in that they represent the uncompromising views of the Republican base.  Romney has the very difficult challenge of maintaining Tea Party support while trying to capture a majority of the independent voters in the swing states.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0712/78556.html


Obama gains a little more ground in Ohio

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/16/july-16-obama-gains-ground-from-ohio-poll/


Less than a million swing voters in six states will elect the next President. 
Who are these folks? 

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/07/15/paul-begala-on-the-swing-voters-who-will-pick-the-president.html

Electoral College update as of July 16

Obama                 237  +1

Romney               195   -1

Tossups                106

The winning candidate now has 113 days left in the 2012 Presidential election campaign to capture 270 electoral votes.

Increasing number of independent voters in swing states

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-10/independent-voter-surge-cuts-democrats-swing-state-edge.html


State of the race in Iowa

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-hoping-to-continue-love-affair-with-iowa/2012/07/10/gJQAZ0tYbW_story.html