Ohio and Florida do not figure prominently in Barack Obama’s electoral strategy, but a new poll suggests these traditional battleground states could again decide who wins the White House.
A Quinnipiac University Poll released Wednesday found tight races in Florida, which gave George Bush his razor-thin victory in 2000, and in Ohio, which was key to his re-election in 2004.
This year, according to the poll, Obama leads presumptive Republican nominee John McCain by four points in Florida and six points in Ohio. The Quinnipiac survey also showed Obama ahead by 12 points in Pennsylvania, a third potential swing state.
The poll comes only days after Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said at a fundraiser that the two states that cost the Democrats the last two elections were not needed for victory this year.
“You have a lot of ways to get to 270,” Plouffe said. “Our goal is not to be reliant on one state on November 4th.”
Political experts agree that Obama could win without Ohio and Florida, but he would have to rack up victories in several smaller swing states in addition to holding onto all the states won by Democratic candidate John Kerry in his failed 2004 bid.
“This is a strategy in which you want to collect four or five small states to offset collecting one large one,” said Ohio University political scientist Michael McTeague.
Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac poll, said if Obama doesn’t capture either Florida or Ohio, he’ll need to sweep Iowa, New Mexico, Colorado and Nevada. “Those are at the top of the campaign’s shopping list,” Brown said.
The Obama campaign has also targeted Virginia, a state that has traditionally voted Republican but is considered by some political experts to be in play in this election.
Brown notes that no president since 1960 has won the White House without winning two of the three states in the Quinnipiac poll.
He said Obama is least likely to win in Florida, which voted for Bush in both 2000 and 2004. The state is home to a large population of older voter and military retirees who will probably support McCain. Much of the state is ideologically conservative, and there is no large base of black voters. The state’s Hispanic voters are mostly Cuban and have traditionally favored Republicans.
Obama has a much better chance of winning Ohio, experts say, because its economic slump figures to hurt the party of the incumbent president.
“I think Ohio will be close but it’s Obama’s to lose,” said Ohio University political science professor Ken Heineman.
