Here's why Team Obama should fight in Arizona, Indiana and Montana in addition to the "swing states"

[Texas Lawyer]

First, those states are very "winnable."

The most recent poll in Arizona is from earlier this month by Purple Strategies (which has a notorious pro-R house effect) and even this R-biased poll gave Romney only a 3% lead over the President (which is within the 4% MoE). Despite the fact that it was his home-state, McCain carried Arizona by only 8.5% (and Romney does not enjoy the home field advantage that boosted McCain).

There is no recent public presidential polling in Indiana, but the President carried Indiana in 2008.

A PPP poll earlier this month gave Romney only a 5% lead, and the Romney campaign has fallen considerably since then.

Second, there are real down-ballot prizes to be won in Arizona, Indiana and Montana.

Earlier this month, a PPP poll put Democratic Senate candidate Richard Carmona just one point behind flaky Republican Jeff Flake. This is a potential Democratic pick up in the Senate. In addition, AZCD-1 and AZCD-9 are races worth watching, and we could use some coattails in the races for these two open seats.

When Tea Party nutjob Richard Mourdock beat traditional Republican Senator Richard Lugar, this race became competitive and Democrat Joe Donnelly is a terrific candidate. There hasn't been much polling, but the little polling there has been puts this race tied or within the margin of error. This is another potential Democratic pick up in the Senate. INCD-2 and INCD-8 are two close races where we are slight underdogs who could use some down-ballot magic.

Montana Senator Jon Tester is in a closely-fought contest to hold this seat against a challenge from Denny Rehberg. This is an important Senate seat for us to hold. Montana's statewide Congressional seat (currently held by Rehberg) is another competitive race where we could use a boost.

Could the President win Arizona, Indiana and Montana? Definitely!

But don't forget that there are also three competitive Senate races and five competitive House races in those states, and we need those votes to pass the President's agenda after he wins.

[muntrv]

1. Plus it forces the repubs to spend money in those states.

[Texas Lawyer]

4. Links to analysis indentfying key house where we can make the Repubs spread their cash more thinly:

Super-genius Sam Wang at the Princeton Election Consortium:

“Using all polls and median-based statistics to address issues of outlier data gives the median of D+4.0% that I gave. That translates to a narrow 16-seat Democratic majority in an election held today.”

http://election.princeton.edu/2012/09/20/house-outlook-for-2013-take-2/.

A nice side-by-side comparison at Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections,_2012

Roll Call (Safe D 159, Likely D 10, Lean D 12 {S+L+L D = 181}; Toss up 28; Safe R 193, Likely R 14, Lean R 19 {S+L+L R = 226}):

http://www.rollcall.com/politics/2012_race_rating_map.html)

The Cook Report) (Solid D 157, Likely D 10, Lean D 16 {S+L+L D = 183}; Toss up 24; Solid R 190, Likely R 21, Lean R 17 {S+L+L R = 228}):

http://cookpolitical.com/house

Pollster (Strong D 168, Lean D 18 {S+L D = 186}; Toss up 18; Strong R 211, Lean R 211 {S+L R 231}):

http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/2012/house-outlook

Others:

University of Virginia’s Center for Politics (http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/category/2012-house/).
Rothenberg Report (http://rothenbergpoliticalreport.com/ratings/house)
Real Clear Politics (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/house/2012_elections_house_map.html).

[longship]

2. Excellent post, TXLaw

Well argued case, sir.


With so much to gain, why not? Then, there are undoubtedly many CDs which could be individually targetted. Too bad we don't have a 50 state strategy this season. That worked wonderfully.

[Texas Lawyer]

3. We MUST push the momentum down ballot to hold the Senate and weaken the Tea Party grip on the House!

[ibegurpard]

5. thank you!

Montana needs help!
They are gunning for our clean campaign laws, for our public schools...everything.

[outsideworld]

6. agreed

doing so will put the repugs in panic mode

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

7. 2016

Arizona is going to go blue eventually. The Latino vote, which the Democrats have locked up for the next generation, is going to be the key. So we might was well start cultivating those voters in this cycle. Montana and Indiana may be less likely to turn Blue (I'd guess Montana before Indiana), there we've recently won statewide elections there. It's worth the effort.

And how about a little sugar for Texas? I know we're not going to win this year or in 2016. But for the same reasons as Arizona, Texas might actually flip Blue for the right Democratic candidate. And it never hurts local Democrats to have the national party involved.

[Texas Lawyer]

8. I think Arizona and Texas are both destined to go blue, but Texas is years behind Arizona (the shift

may be a decade away in Texas).

[JaneyVee]

9. He's only down 3 in Arizona? ARIZONA?! Go for it!

[Texas Lawyer]

10. Arizona's electoral votes would be nice, but wins in the Arizona Senate race and in AZCD-1 & AZCD-9

would be priceless.