From TPM Reader GJ …
Regarding dumping money into non-competitive states, here in Dallas nearly every other commercial is an anti-Obama ad from the superPAC, “Restore our Future.” I’m trying to figure out why they’re dumping so much money into the Texas ad market when I’d assume Texas is about as solidly red as it gets. I have two theories:
This sounded too crazy to me as a theory when readers first started raising it. But now I’m at least wondering. Could the GOP SuperPacs simply be trying to run up the popular vote as high as possible as some sort of legitimacy cudgel in the face of an electoral college defeat? I have no doubt this would be very valuable to Republicans as a cudgel against a reelected Obama. But actually deploying so much money to get it while so many races — both state presidential and senate — are still in play seems really hard for me to believe.
Here’s the theory from TPM Reader MW … Read More
It’s hard to make definitive judgments based on anecdotal reports in the couple days just before a national election. But I’ve heard enough to come to the tentative conclusions that lots of SuperPAC dollars are currently being poured into markets where they can have little or no effect on a contested race. So why is that? Read More
There are more state polls to come today, so the map may change, but as of right now, the only two tossups on the TPM Electoral Scoreboard are Florida and North Carolina.
This tweet from Ari Fleischer …
Prediction Time:1) The election won’t end Tuesday night. 7 states will b decided by 1 pt or less. (VA, OH, CO, IA, PA, WI, NH)
— Ari Fleischer (@AriFleischer) November 4, 2012
The last national Pew poll before the election is out now.
It’s not clear to me that it will affect the final outcome in the presidential race. But let’s note that the dogged efforts of Republican governors in a number of key states to dramatically limit early voting is starting to pay dividends. This is qualitatively different from the standard voter suppression efforts Republicans have focused on. No state has to have early voting. Here in New York, supposedly one of the progressive states in the country, there’s none. But the intent of curtailing early voting systems that were already in place is clear: limit the amount of people who end up voting. Particularly, limit the number of Democrats who vote since Democrats are disproportionately the people who take advantage of early voting.
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