State of the Race – September 29 (2004 Déjà Vu & a Debate Preview)

This week there was another round of state-by-state polling and while I did not get a full count, I did count 26 different states where polling was conducted, including all 11 battleground states that I've identified previously. So as we end the month of September, here's where we stand:

	Safe	Likely	Lean	Total
Obama	179	86	38	303
Romney	131	60	0	191
Tossup				44

If you want to see how I arrived at these categories, I would encourage you to review the first “State of the Race” post I did on August 11 which can be found here. The photo above gives a visual breakdown of which side each states fall on. I'm still unable to use the app that allowed me to create the maps with the degrees of where states fell, so for a list of which states fall in which categories, I provide the following chart:

	Safe	Likely	Lean
Obama	CA, CT, DE, DC, HI, IL, ME, MD, MA, NJ, NY, RI, VT, WA	MI, MN, NM, OH, OR, PA, WI	CO, IA, NV, NH, VA
Romney	AL, AK, AR, GA, ID, KS, KY, LA, MS, ND, OK, SD, TX, UT, WV, WY	AZ, IN, MO, MT, NE, SC, TN
Tossup	FL, NC

Here are the changes from last week: The most obvious change is Florida and North Carolina moving back into the “Tossup” category. Last week, Florida was in the “Lean” Obama category and North Carolina was in the “Lean” Romney category. In addition, Ohio and Wisconsin moved from “Lean” Obama to “Likely” Obama. On the Romney side of the ledger, the only changes were Nebraska and South Dakota essentially switching spots with Nebraska going from “Safe” Romney to “Likely” Romney and South Dakota moving from “Likely” Romney to “Safe” Romney.

All in all, this race still remains very static as there have not been many changes since I started this tracking a month and a half ago. However, the race still has moved in favor of President Obama as he now has 265 electoral votes in either the “Safe” or “Likely” categories. This leaves him only five electoral votes away from the magic number of 270. In other words, Governor Romney needs to do something to change the direction of this race or the President will be reelected.

That brings me to my thoughts for this week and how this race compares to another one in recent history. I have said repeatedly to those that have asked that I feel that this race has many similarities to 2004. I created the following chart to show some of the parallels.

	2004	2012
Incumbent president with average approval ratings and despised by the opposition party	George W. Bush	Barack Obama
Issue that the American public was hopeful the incumbent president would have success with, but has now grown impatient with	Iraq War	Economic Recovery
Challenger who is nominated because the opposition party believes he gives the best chance of winning, but is not loved by the party	John Kerry	Mitt Romney
Quote by the Challenger that dogs him through the campaign because it feeds a pre-existing belief about the candidate	I voted for the war before I vote against it	47% of Americans are victims and dependent on the government
Perceived strength of the Challenger that gets used against him	Vietnam service	Bain Capital
Incumbent vice president who is seen as a senior party leader, but is held in contempt by the opposition	Dick Cheney	Joe Biden
Youthful vice presidential candidate for the Challenger	John Edwards	Paul Ryan
Politically motivated moviemaker who makes a smear piece attacking the incumbent president	Michael Moore	Dinesh D'Souza
The politically charged movie attacking the incumbent president	Fahrenheit 9/11	2016: Obama's America

All of this brings us to the debates. Clearly, Romney needs a game changing moment and I believe he can also take some solace from 2004. Going into those debates, President Bush had opened up a lead in the polls and the conventional wisdom for the debates was that he could put the race away if he was able to win the debates or even if they were considered a draw. However, most people felt that Senator Kerry won the debates and the polls supported this belief as things tightened dramatically and President Bush was reelected by a much slimmer margin and his Electoral College win was very close when you consider that if Ohio had switched to Kerry, the Massachusetts senator would have won. In other words, Romney can make this campaign a lot more competitive if he is able to engage the president in the debates and be perceived as the winner.

As a result, I expect Governor Romney to attack the president and his policies and define President Obama by his failures. However, just pointing out the President's failures will not be sufficient. He must also offer the American people an alternative that they can see and accept. This is where making the personal connection is so critical for a challenger. If you look at recent history and when a challenger has beaten the incumbent president, the challenger was always able to make a personal connection to the voters so that they believed that he would be able to fix the problems. It was this connection that helped elect both Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton when they ran against incumbents. However, if we look back at 2004, I think we can see a clear case of when the challenger, John Kerry, was not able to make that connection and as a result, failed in his attempt to unseat the sitting president even when Bush was considered vulnerable. That is why I think it is critical for Romney to be able to get beyond his 47% quote and look the American people in the eye and make that connection. Since he was unable to do that at the Republican convention, his next chance will be at Wednesday night's first debate. I'll be watching and will report in next week to let you know if I think he succeeded.