United States at the crossroads. One day before Election Day, while the electoral campaign is drawing its last breaths, with the two candidates busy cruising at a hellish pace between the states in the balance, attention is growing towards the polls.
And if the national polls, which take the pulse of the nation, but which do not have a necessary relevance for electoral purposes, find the two candidates as close as ever (some polls show them paired at 48%, while others recognize a margin of less than percentage to Barack Obama), all attention is catalysed by polls of individual states, those that, in fact, decide, with the assignment of electors, who will be the next president of the United States.
To win the elections, 270 electors are neededi (i.e. half plus one, since there are 538 in total). According to the Real Clear Politics poll archive, Obama has a clear lead in 17 states (plus the District of Columbia), for a total of 201 voters, versus 191 attributed to Mitt Romney, who leads in more States, 23, but they are less populous states.
The other 11 states are instead rated as "Toss Up" (Anglo-American verb that can be translated as "toss a coin"), and it is on the edge of these states that elections are played.
The most in the balance, according to polls, is the Virginia (which awards 13 electors), a traditionally republican state in which, however Obama triumph by 6 points in 2008. This year, however, the advantage of the outgoing president, who is recovering, appears very slim, + 0,3 % (48,0 to 47,7).
Head to head too Colorado (9), another state with a republican tradition, mitigated in recent decades by the effects of Latinos immigration, where Obama has a 0,6% lead, after winning by 9 points in 2008
In Florida (29), the key state of Bush Jr.'s first hotly contested election, the chances look good Romney to snatch the state from Obama (who won there in 2008), given the 1,8% advantage of the Republican candidate.
In New Hampshire (4), a small state that has no real historical trend, despite being in the middle of America's democratic heartland, the Obama's lead is 2% (49,7% to 47,7%)
Ohio (18), as often happens, risks turning out to be the real key state of the elections. In fact, whoever wins here will most likely be the president. Obama, driven by the strong recovery in the auto industry, has a margin of 2,9%but that is not a guarantee.
Romney leads by 3 percentage points in North Carolina(15), another basically Republican state, in which Obama's narrow victory (+0,3%) in 2008 is unique (besides him, only Jimmy Carter has won here).
The same margin, in favor of Obama, in Iowa (6), where the outgoing president will end his electoral campaign. More reassuring, but not taken for granted by pollsters, are the advantages of Obama in Michigan (16 voters, +3,8%) and in Wisconsin (10, +4,2%). Some more doubt about Pennsylvania, strange case of these last hours of the electoral campaign. Here the 3,9% advantage in favor of the outgoing president would seem reassuring, but the Republicans (Romney has spent a lot in this state) trust, or at least declare, to be very confident, and some polls show Romney not so far from Obama .
Summing up, the chances of a reappointment of Obama remain good, and if he were to win in all the states where he is ahead, he would reach a total of 303 electors. A margin therefore exists, but remains thin, and any variation (Colorado and Virginia, but also Pennsylvania or Ohio) could reverse the situation, which, from 2000 to today, had never been so uncertain.
