MI, WI, MN, IA, OH: NYT says slowing economy helping Obama in Midwest
9:14 AM
A New York Times piece says the struggling economy is changing the electoral battleground in favor of Barack Obama. The piece cites several Midwestern states, including Michigan, as evidence:
Mr. Obama has what both sides describe as serious efforts under way in at least nine states that voted for President Bush in 2004, including some that neither side thought would be on the table this close to Election Day. ...
By contrast, Mr. McCain is vigorously competing in just four states where Democrats won in 2004: Pennsylvania and New Hampshire, followed by Wisconsin and Minnesota. His decision last week to pull out of Michigan reflected in part the challenge that the declining economy has created for Republicans, given that they have held the White House for the last eight years.
"One of the biggest economic anxieties that people have is the cost of health care," said Gov. James E. Doyle of Wisconsin, a Democrat in a state where Mr. McCain is making a strong challenge to Mr. Obama. "There is a great deal of uneasiness."
Mr. McCain's advisers said that more than anything, it was the bad economy in Michigan, staggered by declining sales of American-made automobiles, that convinced them they had no hope of winning a state that once had been high on their list of targets. ...
Mr. Obama is making a sustained effort to capture from the Republican column Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia.
