As a follow up to yesterday’s brief post (traveling again!) I was going to note a strange missing element to this cycle’s swing state debate: Missouri

Where did the Show Me State go?

I can remember a presidential race where MO was consider the bell-weather. See here from circa 2008:

Stuart Rothenberg, editor and publisher of The Rothenberg Political Report, has suggested states such Colorado, Virginia, and Ohio, will be the bellwethers of 2008. But history makes Missouri difficult to ignore. A majority of Missouri voters have sided with the prevailing candidate in every presidential election since 1960. The election four years prior represents their only miss in a century, since St. Louis, the state’s largest city, hosted the 1904 World’s Fair.

That track record has earned the state a place of respect in the 2008 presidential campaigns.

MO was barely won by John McCain in 2008 by one of the smallest of margins (0.1%). It probably was one of the few states not to go Obama (while VA went overboard). So why is it this year not even close and MO is now is solid GOP? The RCP poll average as of today shows Romney +11.2%! Is this not a clear sign Obama has lost his mojo from 4 years ago to go from tied to -11%?

Along these lines keep an eye on Battleground Watch for an in depth and daily analysis of two key counties in Nevada. The early voting data he is seeing is not a good sign for Obama, who is supposedly leading in the RCP average of polls in this state. Take Bob’s Washoe County update from yesterday:

The aggregate Washoe lead now stands at 375 more ballots cast by Republicans than Democrats, a far cry from the 12k advantage Democrats enjoyed in 2008.  Washoe’s going red people … get used to it.  If Romney is winning a majority of the Independent vote and the Clark GOP keeps its close . . .

Big contrast in the running tallies

2012 thru Day 12	2008 Through Day 12
Dem – 39700 (40.9%)	Dem – 43357 (47.86%)
GOP – 39054 (40.3%)	GOP – 31711 (34.99%)
NP – 18202 (18.8%)	NP – 15570 (17.18%)

This is a large turn around from 2008, with Dems losing a 13% advantage in 2008 to now being tied. Strange how that 13% shift mirrors the MO shift – just saying. And this shift is similar to the 4 year cahnges seen in blue states listed in my last post (CT -14%, MI -14%, MN -8% and PA – 7%).

It is clear many pollsters are banking on a Dem turnout advantage equal or better than 2008. I find that unlikely, which is why many of us think the pollster are going to get a rude awakening (as are robotic statistical analysis like Nate Silver’s that simply churn GIGO). I wager Obama is losing a lot more Dems than polls indicate along with the lower energy on the left, so I think we will see another year like 2010 where a lot of pollster just never detected the voter outrage coming.

Update: Signs, signs, everywhere signs:

The indispensable Dave Wasserman at Cook Political Report has put together a detailed spreadsheet breaking down Virginia absentee voting by county. The bottom line: while, compared with four years ago, absentee voting is off just about 1 percent in generally Republican counties that went for John McCain in 2008 , it’s down nearly 14 percent in counties that went for Obama. Wasserman cautions that these numbers don’t necessarily spell doom for Obama. But they are a troubling early indicator.

No, I would say that spells doom…

Update 2: Yep, more signs, this time in Ohio:

There are now 23 counties in which the percentage of the 2008/2012 early voting ratio equals or exceeds 80 percent.  McCain carried 17 of them, and the six Obama carried are still those in the eastern, blue collar part of the state.  Cincinnati exurban counties Brown and Warren now report their early votes equal 99 and 93 percent, respectively, of the 2008 early vote percentage.

 Large, big margin Obama counties remain at the bottom of the early voting ratio.  Summit (Akron), Lucas (Toledo), Cuyahoga (Cleveland) and Franklin (Columbus) are all near the bottom of this analysis, with between 67 and 69 percent of the 2008 early vote percentage already cast in 2012. 

Barack Obama is clearly winning the early vote in Ohio. But careful analysis of the actual numbers so far suggest very good news for Mitt Romney.

And do I need to note where Mitt Romney will be this weekend?