Tennessee? Really? Tennessee?
A new Vanderbilt University poll shows President Obama has pulled into a virtual tie with Mitt Romney in traditionally conservative Tennessee.
Romney barely edged Obama among likely voters, 42% to 41%. However, Romney has a much larger lead among registered voters, 47% to 40%.
Well, if you remember, I had Tennessee colored in as light red on my map, meaning that it was lean Romney, meaning that the most recent poll only showed a Romney lead of between 5 and 9.9 points. This poll will now color Tennessee yellow, as a Toss up state. In the end, I don’t believe it will be a toss up state, but for now we will go with what the polls tell us.
Meanwhile, Gallup finds taht 56% of Americans think Barack Obama will win the 2012 presidential election, compared with 36% who think Mitt Romney will win.
Democrats are more likely to believe that Obama will win than Republicans are to believe Romney will. Independents are nearly twice as likely to think that Obama, rather than Romney, will prevail.
That worries me a little. Everyone wants to vote for a winner, and they perceive Obama to be a winner. But I also don’t want complancy to set in.
Here is our new map:
Obama 266, Romney 170, Toss-up 102