Latest polls: Romney leads in another national poll: AP-GFK 47-45% and the gender gap is gone, as Pew first showed. It was 16 points, now it’s a 47-47% tie. States: OH: Time: Obama 49-44%
From the Time poll: “The poll makes clear that there are really two races underway in Ohio. On one hand, the two candidates are locked in a dead heat among Ohioans who have not yet voted but who say they intend to, with 45% of respondents supporting the President and 45% preferring his Republican challenger. But Obama has clearly received a boost from Ohio’s early voting period, which began on Oct. 2 and runs through November 5. Among respondents who say they have already voted, Obama holds a two-to-one lead over Romney, 60% to 30%.”
And the gender gap in Ohio is real: Obama’s up 56-37% with women. Romney leads with men 51-42%. Also helping Obama: He gets 43% of the white vote. That’s the SAME percentage he got in Ohio in 2008.
Ohio’s nightmare scenario: “A new Ohio program intended to make voting easier has the potential to keep the presidential election in doubt until late November if the national outcome hinges on the state's 18 electoral votes,” USA Today writes. “Under Secretary of State Jon Husted's initiative to send absentee ballot applications to nearly 7 million registered voters across Ohio, more than 800,000 people so far have asked for but not yet completed an absentee ballot for the Nov. 6 election. Anyone who does not return an absentee ballot, deciding instead to vote at the polls, will be required to cast a provisional ballot. That's so officials may verify that they did not vote absentee and also show up at the polls.”
Jon Ralston makes the case for why Romney still has a shot in Nevada, but also why the Democratic Harry Reid machine likely prevails: “As I have reported ad nauseam, the math looks ominous for Romney with the registration and early voting turnout. But it’s not insurmountable math. If Republicans can turn out in much greater numbers during the second week of early voting and on Nov.6 and if Romney can decisively win independents, he could pull of a squeaker. Some GOP strategists I respect clearly believe that is a possible scenario. And Republicans, despite my irresistible mockery, do have a ground game this cycle, albeit not close to the Reid machine.”
Warren Buffet on CNBC: "We're still inching ahead, but we're inching. "I think the economy will get better under either one of them.”
