AZ: Rocky Mountain: Arizona competetive next year

[pbrower2a]

Pretty great numbers for Romney.   Once Romney starts airing attack ads here on how Obama is soft on illegal aliens, it's game over for 0bama.   It will be a Romney landslide of 1964 epic proportions.   GO MITT!

Yes...

A landslide where Romney can't even break 50% in a state the Democrats have only won once since the 1950s

Bill Clinton won the state (barely) in 1996.  Goldwater barely won the state, and probably only because he was from Arizona. President Obama lost the state by less than the usual advantage (about 10%) for a state with a Favorite Son. That advantage not  only appears with a Favorite Son but also disappears in the next election when the Favorite Son disappears.  Look at the difference between Texas in 2004 and 2008 --- about a 10% gain for the Democrats even if they still lost the state decisively.

As a candidate, Barack Obama did not campaign in Arizona. Based on the slight McCain margin in  2008, Arizona looks like a legitimate swing state in 2012. Count on the President campaigning in Arizona this time, if only to aid the Democratic candidate for an open Senate seat.

President Obama stands to win a Clinton-scale victory (roughly 375 electoral votes) if he wins Arizona, which is consistent with him getting 53% of the popular vote -- which I don't see happening yet.

I am unfamiliar with Rocky Mountain Polling, but CNN seems to have no problem with it. I'd like to see corroboration. This could be a post-Qaddafi bounce, so it might not stick.

[pbrower2a]

Pretty great numbers for Romney.   Once Romney starts airing attack ads here on how Obama is soft on illegal aliens, it's game over for 0bama.   It will be a Romney landslide of 1964 epic proportions.   GO MITT!

Yes...

A landslide where Romney can't even break 50% in a state the Democrats have only won once since the 1950s

Bill Clinton won the state (barely) in 1996.  Goldwater barely won the state, and probably only because he was from Arizona. President Obama lost the state by less than the usual advantage (about 10%) for a state with a Favorite Son. That advantage not  only appears with a Favorite Son but also disappears in the next election when the Favorite Son disappears.  Look at the difference between Texas in 2004 and 2008 --- about a 10% gain for the Democrats even if they still lost the state decisively.

As a candidate, Barack Obama did not campaign in Arizona. Based on the slight McCain margin in  2008, Arizona looks like a legitimate swing state in 2012. Count on the President campaigning in Arizona this time, if only to aid the Democratic candidate for an open Senate seat.

President Obama stands to win a Clinton-scale victory (roughly 375 electoral votes) if he wins Arizona, which is consistent with him getting 53% of the popular vote -- which I don't see happening yet.

I am unfamiliar with Rocky Mountain Polling, but CNN seems to have no problem with it. I'd like to see corroboration. This could be a post-Qaddafi bounce, so it might not stick.

That didn't adjust for the national swing. The trend from 04 to 08 in Texas was 1.38% towards the Democrats - a trivial amount smaller than NH or PA's Republican trends that most people don't even realise happened. That's not to say that Bush's home state advantage was small or non-existent, just that there lots of other factors involved so it's hard to pinpoint exactly how much the home state advantage was.

The 10% is an estimate. I did notice that Barack Obama won Massachusetts om 2008  by a larger margin than did John Kerry in 2004. That is a max-out scenario that seems to be an exception. In other situations I saw much the same with McGovern, of all people, in 1972; although he lost the state it was uncharacteristically one of his strongest.  It could be more or less. Obama gained 14% from Kerry between 2004 and 2008.

 It applies only when it isn't negated (1920, when both Presidential candidates were from Ohio) and when the candidate is seen sympathetically. Santorum would do badly against Obama in Pennsylvania -- probably as badly as McCain did in 2008. It could be that opposing  campaigns don't challenge Favorite Sons in their own states.