What the final campaign stops tell us...

[Drunken Irishman]

1) Obama is not worried about Pennsylvania or Michigan going Romney. He's not campaigning in either between now and election day.

2) The campaign probably doesn't think it's going to win North Carolina. No campaigning there, either.

3) They're not putting the full-court press on Virginia this go around. Obama ended his campaign in VA four years ago. He only has one stop between now and election day.

4) Wisconsin is probably tight. Obama was there today, he'll be there Saturday and he'll hold another rally there Monday night.

5) Obama is still fighting for Florida, but they view it less important than Ohio. So, either they feel it's locked up (not so sure) or that Romney still has an advantage and they don't want to risk giving Romney an opening in Ohio.

6) Iowa is a state the Obama campaign really wants to win. They'll be there Saturday ... and then the campaign officially will end in Des Moines.

7) Obama must feel good about Nevada. He's only making one stop there (today). Colorado he's at right now and will be at again Sunday ... so, the campaign probably believes they can win it.

8) It's still about Ohio. Obama will spend all day there tomorrow, will campaign in Mentor Saturday, Cincinatti Sunday and Columbus Monday. That's Ohio every day between now and the election.

The final stretch breaks down like this:

1 visit: Virginia (Saturday), Florida (Sunday), Nevada (Today), New Hampshire (Sunday)
2 visits: Iowa (Saturday, Monday), Colorado (Today, Sunday)
3 visits: Wisconsin (Today, Saturday, Monday)
6 visits: Ohio (Friday - 3 times, Saturday, Sunday, Monday)

Here's Romney's schedule:

Friday: Wisconsin, Ohio, Ohio
Saturday: New Hampshire, Iowa, Colorado, Colorado
Sunday: No events yet
Monday: Ohio, New Hampshire (his final rally)

Odd both campaigns aren't scheduled to campaign much in Florida. Romney really wants New Hampshire.

What does this tell me? I don't know. So, what does it tell you?!?

[Agschmid]

1. Edit suggestion...

You mean "stops" right?

[Drunken Irishman]

3. THIS ELECTION IS MAKING ME SEE SPOTS!

[Agschmid]

5. Totally agree!

At least it's making me see 3AM a lot more often than I should. Now if someone would just call my red phone.

[msongs]

2. tells us where they are going to be on those dates nt

[Agschmid]

8. Obama New Hampshire stop is in Concord.

See this thread for more: http://www.democraticunderground.com/1251199870

[CaliforniaPeggy]

4. This is what it tells me, my dear Drunken Irishman...

I'll be so damn glad when this is all over!

And I expect Obama feels much the same...

[Scootaloo]

6. Someday, the West Coast will be relevant to the US election...

Hell, if the election comes down to Alaska, California, Hawaii, Oregon, and Washington, something is fucked up.

[Bleacher Creature]

7. One stop in NV, one stop in VA

Not disagreeing, but interesting how you frame one as a positive and the other with more skepticism. I feel pretty good about VA, but 270 is all that matters.

[Drunken Irishman]

10. Yeah, I really don't know what to make of VA.

The polls there are narrower than Nevada, so, that's probably why I said he feels more confident about Nevada. Plus, Nevada has a lot of early voting, so, a good portion of the state has already voted. Virginia is almost entirely going to be the day of the election...which is curious why he won't stop there again. Either he's very confident or not so much. Crazy! I don't see how he can be either...haha

[Bleacher Creature]

12. Same here.

I just really like the trend in VA (and am doing some GOTV there this weekend).

I also really want this to be over!

[Floyd_Gondolli]

9. Nice breakdown

Interesting Willard has but one stop in the Badger state between now and election day.

And I wonder where they go Sunday? Surely they're not going to sit around collecting canned goods and cleaning up rubbish.

[alcibiades_mystery]

11. I'll fine tune Ohio for you

They believe that they're good to go in Northern Ohio, on the Auto Industry strip, from Youngstown, through the massive Lordstown plant, and on up I-80 through Cleveland, on west to Toledo, all the way to the border. Romney's made a straight ass of himself in the UAW corridor, and has no chance there. Obama is trying to lock up the over-the-top vote in southern Ohio. I'd suggest they're looking to move from 42% to 46% there. But it's mostly insurance.

[TeamPooka]

16. It's all about the greater Columbus area right?

Cincinati is a GOP stronghold
Toledo and Cleveland are the UAW base
so it's all about Columbus
C'mon Columbus-ites!
You can do it!

[Tx4obama]

13. Bill Clinton is covering Florida, see below

Info regarding Bill Clinton's three 'solo' Friday, November 2nd, Florida rallies on the link below
Comment #10 here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/1251199870#post10


==========


President Obama's rallies:

Friday
Franklin County Fairgrounds in Hilliard, Ohio
Springfield High School in Springfield, Ohio
Lima Senior High School in Lima, Ohio

Saturday
Mentor, Ohio
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Dubuque, Iowa
Bristow, Virginia (Obama w/ Bill Clinton)

Sunday
Concord, New Hampshire (Obama w/ Bill Clinton)
Ft. Lauderdale, Florida
Aurora, Colorado
Cincinnati, Ohio

Monday
Madison, Wisconsin (w/ Springsteen)
Columbus, Ohio (w/ Springsteen and Jay Z)
Des Moines, Iowa (w/ Springsteen and Michelle Obama)

[TeamPooka]

17. Where's Joe Biden going to be?

[Tx4obama]

19. Joe Biden's schedule for tomorrow, Friday

Friday, November 2, 2012

12:15 PM - Biden delivers remarks at a campaign event at Aldrich Middle School in Beloit, Wis.

5:00 PM - Biden delivers remarks at a campaign event at Superior Middle School.

Scroll down a little but on the right side of the page here: http://www.politico.com/politico44/
there is a calendar, they haven't posted the Saturday/Sunday/Monday events yet.

[TeamPooka]

27. Thank you Tex.

[nevergiveup]

14. Obama's last political rally will be in Des Moines on Monday evening.

The First Lady will join him. Iowa was his first primary victory in 2008. This is where it started. I suspect there will be some heavy hearts at this event. I would love to be there.

[marlakay]

15. Lawrence just said Mitt is going to PA

On Sunday, which is a waste....

[Tx4obama]

18. And Romney has surrogates heading to Florida

Romney campaign to hit the road with 100 surrogates

(CNN) – Mitt Romney and his running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan, will kick off a four-day tour starting Friday, where they'll be joined by their wives and 100 surrogates in the final days of the White House race, his campaign announced Wednesday.

The tour starts off with a rally in West Chester, Ohio. Featured guests that day include former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Sen. John McCain of Arizona.

In the four days before Election Day, the surrogates will fan out across eleven battleground states: Colorado, Ohio, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin.

-snip-

More here: http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/10/31/romney-campaign-to-hit-the-road-with-100-surrogates/

[Cha]

20. KNR..this thread is informative and fascinating!

Thanks DI I know we have DUers in North Carolina who are working so hard to turn it BLUE.. And, all the other Obama Supporters who are in NC..early voting. Damn, I hope it Can Happen!

[LisaL]

22. Obama is concentrating on most likely to win states.

Doesn't mean NC can't turn blue!

[Cha]

24. And, there It IS! thanks LisaL!

[Azathoth]

21. It tells me that public polling is pretty accurate

There are no super profound internal polling secrets. The OH-WI-NV axis is our firewall and the campaign is not confident enough to focus on other paths. Nevada is safe. Wisconsin and Ohio are both tight. Iowa and Colorado are leaning slightly our way. Virginia, New Hampshire, and especially Florida are either tossups or in Romney's column. North Carolina is lost.

[LisaL]

23. NC is not gone.

Several recent polls show it's a toss up. Evenly split.

[Azathoth]

25. It's gone from a stategist's point of view

We still have a good shot in NC, but the Obama people clearly aren't betting any of their marbles on it. It's up to us to pull out a win there.

[LisaL]

26. Well according to Nate Silver, NC is the least likely to win state of the swing states.

Doesn't mean it can't be won, though.

[Drunken Irishman]

28. My gut tells me VA and FL are leaning Obama.

But their best bet is still Ohio because they have a solid lead there. I don't think they want to risk Ohio drifting Romney why they try to run up the score in Virginia and Florida. Likewise, I suspect Romney doesn't want to focus too hard on those two states knowing he still needs Ohio. Basically, I bet both campaigns are leaving each state to chance and their ground game. It's risky for Romney, not so much Obama because he doesn't need either.

But like you said, he's not up enough to run up the score like he did in '08. In his final leg of the campaign, Obama campaigned in North Carolina, Florida and Virginia ... ending in Virginia. This year? It's Wisconsin, Ohio and Iowa.

[Azathoth]

29. I feel good about Virginia

If I had to bet, I'd say the only real debate inside the campaign was the decision whether to make the final push in Colorado or Virginia.

Florida is just a nightmare. Between its demographics, oddball local politics, and pathological inability to run an election without a wacky assortment of irregularities, I think the Obama campaign is wisely keeping it at arms length. Too unpredictable.

Romney's decision not to hit either Virginia or Florida in the finals days is a definite sign of desperation. No matter how they spin it, those states are far too close to claim they're in the bag. At this point in the game, you don't ignore razor-tight must win states unless you have no choice.

[Drunken Irishman]

30. FL is a state I could see going either way. Early voting has me optimistic, tho.

I should point out that Michelle is set for a campaign rally in Charlotte. So, they're not fully giving up on NC. The thing is, Michelle has out-drawn Romney-Ryan in a lot of states! So, she's definitely an A-lister, as is Clinton. Which benefits Obama because they have more top-level surrogates than Romney.

[grantcart]

31. I think that mapping campaign visits and trying to do an interpretation on what is happening

with the numbers is an exercise in Kabuki Theater.

They are planning campaign visits where they think that the visits will have the biggest impact.

There is little reason to visit NV again because EV is so high that more than half of the state has already voted.

There is also the possibility that where you have a precise GOTV operation like NC that a visit by the President may be counter productive to getting people to the polls.

I am more worried that Romney isn't going to NC than he is, although a visit by Romney to NC would be very demoralizing to the pundit class because it would confirm that it is closer than projected.

Visits by both campaigns to NH cannot be good news to Romney. He shouldn't be spending any time there because 1) It's his home state 2) its only 4 EV and 3) If he can't bank NH he has a lot of other problems.

By the way Ohio and Virginia or of equal value. If Obama takes either one then there is no reasonable path to 270 for Romney.

Of course if Obama takes NC or Florida then there is no path, reasonable or unreasonable that takes him to 270.

Based on early voting it should be assumed that IA/WI and NV are strongly leaning for the President, and that Romney is pinned against the wall. He probably isn't going to Florida simply because the media markets are so far from each other its like 3 different states and he doesn't have enough time to make a big enough impact.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1251200615

The Obama campaign is saying that they are crushing Romney in Early Voting in Florida

http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/the-buzz-florida-politics/content/democrats-crushing-republicans-sporadic-fla-voters-early-voting#comments

A trusted Democratic operative sent us some data on the early and absentee ballot vote in Florida so far to make the point that Barack Obama is crushing Mitt Romney when it comes to banking the votes of sporadic and infrequent voters before election day. So far more than 3 million Floridians have cast a ballot by absentee, mail-in ballot or in-person early vote ballot. Democrats lead by more than 60,000 votes, but it's the unlikely voter numbers that jump out:

We chatted with Ashley Walker, director of the Florida Obama campaign, about this:

"This isn't 2008. We don't have 15 days of early vote. We have 8 days, and so it's a different race," Walker said. "When you really dig down and start looking at at these numbers in who is turning out with these vote-by-mail numbers and early vote numbers, more of our sporadic, irregular voters than theirs by a three-to-one margin. And that means we have more old faithfuls to come out on election day. I'm not going to try to bullshit you - it's a tight race, it's a really close race, but any spin they're trying to feed you that we're behind where we were in 2008 is just spin....It's a totally different race. The opportunities and the rules of the game are totally different."