Democrats Dilemma

In the days since the October 3 presidential debate, national polls continue to show President Obama maintaining a slight lead over Governor Romney.  These national polls are misleading and, I suspect, are lulling Democrats into believing that the debate was something less than the unmitigated disaster for them that it really was.

In presidential campaigns, national polls should be distrusted because they are precisely what they claim to be: nationwide polls, conducted with samples in each of the states.  This might be a valid way to measure a candidate's strength IF presidents were elected by popular vote.  They are not--presidents are determined by the electoral college votes each state is allocated based on its representation in Congress.  In our "winner take all" system, the candidate who wins the popular vote in any given state on election day gets ALL of that state's electoral college votes. 

The problem with national polls is that the vast majority of Americans live in the vast majority of states which are clearly "Red" (Republican) or "blue" (Democratic).  As a practical matter, these polls are measuring that which is totally irrelvant--namely, by how much a particular candidate is going to win a particular state.

In fact, it doesn't matter if Governor Romney wins Oklahoma with sixty percent or one hundred percent of the vote: either way, he gets all of Oklahoma's electoral votes.  Since Oklahoma is a Red state, it is meaningless or even misleading to study Romney's strength there.

The election will be determined by a tiny number of "swing" states, or "battleground" states--states that are not clearly Red or Blue, but could vote either way.  In this election, the swing states are Colorado, Nevada, Iowa, Wisconsin, Ohio, Florida, North Carolina and New Hampshire.

Since the October 3 debate, Governor Romney has moved up significantly in all of the swing states except Wisconsin.  Most importantly, he is now tied or leading the president in Ohio.  Ohio is crucial: no Republican has ever won the White House without winning Ohio.  If the Republicans lose Ohio, they would have to win every other swing state--including Wisconsin, where the president is leading--in order to capture the presidency.

Democrats thus far have viewed Ohio as a "firewall":  As long as the Democrats won Ohio, they were virtually assured of winning the presidency.  And Democrats were confident of victory in the Buckeye state; after all, one out of every eight jobs in Ohio is directly related to the auto industry.  Remember when Governor Romney loudly declared the auto industry should be allowed to go bankrupt?  Remember when President Obama rescued the auto industry?  Democrats believed Ohio's workers and their families would remember, and vote Democratic in 2012.

Clearly, the Democrats faith in Ohio voters was misplaced.  And any Democrat today (October 8) who looks at the national polls and feels confident of victory on November 6, is also making a grave mistake.  The debate was a Democratic disaster.  The task for the Democrats is no longer to "run out the clock" on an election they are leading, but somehow pull back from the brink of defeat.