Sunday, September 7, 2008

Battleground States as of September 2008

The following states will decide out next president:

Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Missouri, New Mexico, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia, all of which voted Republican in 2004, but Obama is competing in this year, and Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, all of which voted Democrat in 2004, but McCain is competing in this year.

McCain has about a 10% lead in Texas, so don't expect much action here. But perhaps a few ads may run in Harris County since Democrats see county wide opportunities if voter turnout is high.

This little bit at the end of the story tells us something about how campaigns are run these days:

The [McCain] campaign is using technology to help identify likely voters, including having volunteers call supporters using Internet phones that can help collect data for the Republican National Committee.

“If the person you’re calling says, ‘Yes, I’m voting for Senator McCain,’ you push a button on the phone and it automatically goes back to the R.N.C. database,” Mr. DuHaime said. “If the person says it’s a wrong number, there’s another button and it wipes that number out, so that nobody ever calls that again.”

“You can take all that data,” he added, “and analyze it, figure out things that are working and things that are not and how to allocate resources.”