Romney Losing in Ohio, Race Tightens in Arizona

This morning Nate Silver on 538 gives Obama an 81.9% chance of winning.

He gives Romney just an 18.1% chance of winning.

His "Nowcast" says that if the election were to be held today, Obama would have a 97.8% chance of winning.

Well, actually the election IS being held today because most states have early voting or absentee voting.

Romney has been on a bus tour of Ohio this week, but they may be pulling their advertising out of Ohio to save money because the push isn't working. When you read about how dreadful the rallies are for Romney in that state, it becomes apparent why it might be a lost cause:

From the New York Times

On Wednesday, the Romney campaign reserved $3.4 million worth of advertising time in eight swing states. Nearly half of that — more than $1.5 million — was for Virginia. The rest was spread across Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina and Wisconsin. His total ad spending for the week is more than $10 million.

Ohio isn't listed. Now it could be that SuperPac money will rush in with more advertising, but at some point the Republicans will shift towards the down-ticket races instead.

When you read about some of his rallies in Ohio its pretty clear why enthusiasm is evaporating. Read, for instance, this devastating snapshot from The Atlantic:

In the Columbus suburb of Westerville, Romney began his day in a high-school gymnasium bedecked with a confounding array of slogans. A whirling "debt clock" raced upward from 16 trillion; video monitors read "Victory in Ohio"; a bright-blue banner professed "We Need a Real Recovery"; and a powder-blue banner stated "We Can't Afford Four More Years." The governor, John Kasich, welcomed him to the stage with a whiplash-inducing mixed message: "Ohio's coming back! Our families are going back to work!" he said, extolling the state's fast-improving and better-than-average unemployment rate. And then, quickly turning dour: "But every day I have to face the headwinds from this president."

Romney's native-son celebrity endorser, golf legend Jack Nickalus, then gave an excruciating 10-minute speech. Nicklaus, now 72 and a Florida resident, is nicknamed "The Golden Bear" after his Columbus-area high-school mascot, and the crowd held signs reading "The Golden Bear for Romney-Ryan." Romney told the crowd he believed Nicklaus to be "the greatest athlete of the 20th century," inviting some ridicule from the sports world, and gave a mostly lifeless 20-minute spiel in which he assured voters he would not lower their taxes. [b]"By the way, don't be expecting a huge cut in taxes, because I'm also going to get rid of deductions and exemptions," he said.

Nancy Pelosi was on MSNBC's Rachel Maddow last night hinting that Obama might have a chance in Arizona now, and AP is reporting the Dems may start to advertise there. That would be huge and would give Obama another path to victory.

AP Story

Signaling confidence, Obama's team is considering competing in Arizona.

Obama looked at competing in Arizona in 2008, but decided against it because of the support there for home state Sen. John McCain, the GOP nominee. Obama still won 45 percent of the vote.

This year, Obama's team talked early on about running in Arizona, which offers 11 electoral votes, but it never did. Now, with an internal Democratic poll showing Obama narrowly leading Romney, Obama's team might make a play for the state that has seen a 160,000 increase in voter registrations by Democratic-leaning Hispanics over the past four years.

Buying television time in Phoenix, the state's largest city, is expensive and Obama advisers are closely watching their finances.

That's not to say that competing in Arizona would be all about winning: going up on the air in the state — or sending the president in to campaign there, could force Romney to spend valuable resources defending a state he should be able to count on in the quest to reach 270 Electoral College votes needed for victory.

If any other red states begin to move into blue territory, then it's over for Romney. I think lots of Republicans here in Tennessee are going to vote for Obama, we may actually go 50-50 this time.