Romney is winning the independents

Jay Costs:

The polls are clear. Since the fallout from the first debate in Denver on October 3, Romney has enjoyed a relatively durable lead over the president in the Real Clear Politics average of the national polls. While the lead is small, it has persisted over time, and, more important, history suggests that this is trouble for an incumbent. The only sitting president to mount a last-minute comeback against his challenger was Gerald Ford in 1976, and of course Ford still lost. Usually, late deciders in a presidential campaign either break for the challenger or split about evenly between the two sides.

The problem for the president is Romney’s strong and sustained lead among independent voters. Despite four years of boasting from the Democrats that they were in the process of transforming the electorate, the fact remains that voters unaffiliated with either party determine the outcome of national elections. And with these voters, Romney has a substantial lead. The most recent Rasmussen Reports poll shows Romney besting Obama by 13 points, 52 percent to 39 percent, among unaffiliated voters. Since 1972, the first year of exit polling, no candidate for president has won election while losing independents by such a wide margin.

What is driving this is, above all, Romney’s growing advantage on who can best handle the economy. The most recent ABC News/Washington Post poll gives the Republican a 9-point lead on this issue, which remains the top determinant of most vote choices. The recent Associated Press-GfK poll found Romney with a 6-point lead on the economy among likely voters, as well as an 8-point lead on who can better handle the deficit.

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And what of the state polls? Romney seems to have the edge in states whose electoral votes add up to 261 (with 270 needed for a majority), while Obama has the edge in states that add up to 237. Four states remain true tossups at this writing: Iowa, Nevada, Ohio, and Wisconsin. If Romney carries the states where he has the edge—and wins either Ohio or Wisconsin—he will be elected the 45th president of the United States. 

It is worth asking: How did we arrive at this point? After all, it was not long ago that pundits pronounced the Romney campaign dead and buried. All that was left was the voting, we were told. Now, Romney has a lead in the nationwide polls and the momentum in the swing states. 

The announcements of Romney’s demise said a lot more about the bias of the mainstream media, as well as their ignorance of how voters make decisions, than it did about the Romney team. The reality was that this was always bound to be a close race, and even when Romney was down in the polls, he was laying the groundwork for a strong finish.
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The Obama team thought it could effectively disqualify Romney from the presidency before the real campaign even began, but this was a -mistake. In truth, they committed the same error that so many in the mainstream press did: They underestimated Romney’s appeal as a candidate, which, as everybody saw in the debates, is in fact very strong.
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Romney has pulled even in Ohio, Iowa and Wisconsin.  Winning two of those three should put him over the top.  I think he is also closing strong in Michigan and Pennsylvania.  One of the errors of the Obama campaign was to draw too stark of a picture of Romney as a man and as a candidate.  When he showed up at the debate and did not follow their script they then accused him of lying about his policies.  In doing so they lost further credibility.

They next turned to scarcasm, derision and snark,  That prebably sealed their fate with independents who don't trust that in a politician or a spouse.