NEW YORK TIMES: …The fact that Pennsylvania is just slightly left-leaning and worth 20 electoral votes, tied for the fifth largest haul with Illinois, makes the state an attractive target for Republicans. Pennsylvania is not necessary for Mitt Romney to reach 270 electoral votes, but it would provide him with more flexibility, allowing him to lose two of the three smallest battleground states — New Hampshire, Nevada and Iowa — if he carried North Carolina, Florida and Virginia.
In addition, Pennsylvania has a lot of white, working-class voters who have never been especially enamored with President Obama (Hillary Clinton bested him by 10 percentage points in Pennsylvania’s 2008 Democratic primary). Pennsylvania is also relatively old, with the fourth largest share of residents 65 years and older. The Republicans took the state’s governor’s mansion and a United States Senate seat in 2010.
But Pennsylvania may be fool’s gold for the Romney campaign. The state is relatively inelastic; it has few true swing voters, and turnout tends to be the final deciding factor. In other words, the state’s Democratic-lean isn’t severe, but it is hard to reverse. Yes, Republicans have carried the state six times in the last 15 presidential contests. But in each of those wins the Republican won nationally by at least seven percentage points, a margin that is unlikely this year no matter who wins… (more)
