Today, NBC News/First Read reported that the Obama and Romney campaigns are flooding the Virginia and North Carolina airwaves with political advertisements. Five of the six most inundated media markets lay in these two Mid-Atlantic States, which might be surprising to those who follow more traditional sources of political analysis. Karl Rove placed these two states in the first tier of his “3-2-1” strategy, implying that these traditionally Republican states should be among the first to return to the GOP column.
Long time readers know that Obama’s coalition in Virginia and North Carolina is unusually resilient. In both states, Obama depends on a coalition of educated, upscale, suburban whites and minorities. Nationally, Obama has suffered uneven losses, as most of his defectors are whites without a college degree. With relatively few working class white supporters to lose in North Carolina and Virginia, the two Mid-Atlantic states appear to have moved toward the Democrats, although it is more accurate to say that the rest of the country has moved away from Obama faster. The bottom line: so long as Obama maintains his support among college educated whites and minorities, Obama will be competitive in these states.
There should be no surprise that Obama is investing heavily in Virginia and North Carolina. Somewhat more surprising is Romney’s decision to fight dollar for dollar in the Tar Heel State. The sheer size of Romney’s investment suggests that the Romney campaign’s polling shows Obama extremely close, or even leading. That doesn’t necessarily make Obama the favorite in North Carolina, since Romney could have an advantage among the remaining voters, so long as the Romney campaign fights vigorously for their support, unlike McCain in 2008. One wonders whether the GOP’s failure to vigorously contest North Carolina in 2008 has something to do with Obama’s uncanny resilience in 2012.
North Carolina could play a decisive role in a close national election, but Virginia and North Carolina are so similar that Virginia is likely to remain somewhat to North Carolina’s left. As a result, North Carolina can only play a critical role when an Obama victory in Virginia is insufficient to win the Presidency. For instance, Obama could rely on North Carolina to compensate for hypothetical losses in the Midwest. Since that scenario is relatively unlikely, a fierce race in North Carolina might be most important as an indicator of Romney’s problem in Virginia. If North Carolina is close enough to merit considerable GOP expenditures, then Obama might have a meaningful advantage in Virginia. Romney’s victory path gets pretty narrow without Virginia, so it might be fair to say that Obama currently has an Electoral College advantage by the margin of Virginia, so long as the two campaigns are locked in hand to hand combat further south.
