Of all the battleground states that will be the subject of intense focus tonight, only Florida is definitively still considered a state that will probably go to Mitt Romney.
But the fact that most (but not all) pollsters think the race is extremely close in Florida has to be positive news for the Obama for America folks.
Think about it: Yes, Florida is a swing-state, but is a state that has only turned rightward since President Obama won by less than three percentage points in 2008. In 2010, fueled by the Tea Party, Rick Scott became the governor of Florida, Pam Bondi the Attorney General, and Marco Rubio the junior U.S. Senator here. And the already GOP-dominated Legislature added more Republicans.
Meanwhile, For much of his presidency, Barack Obama has been underwater in terms of his own personal approval ratings here in Florida.
And yet...yes, there have been a couple of polls in recent days that show Romney up by 5-6 points (such as the Tampa Bay Times/Bay News 9 survey). But the race may be much closer than that, with Obama within striking distance. Just as Mitt Romney is within striking distance in all types of swing states.
The fact is, most conservative don't believe those swing-state polls showing Obama with a lead in most of them. They think the polls are skewed, and will find out by this time tomorrow whether they were on to something or not.
That's certainly the philosophy that GOP Florida Senate candidate Connie Mack is espousing. He told CL yesterday that those skewed polls will be the story that political reporters will be writing about on Wednesday.
Election Day means every member of Congress is up for re-election, and when it comes to the House of Representatives, that means the vast majority of the 435 men and women running tonight will be re-elected, despite Congress' anemic popularity rankings. Tampa area Congresswoman Kathy Castor is running against Republican E.J. Otero. Sure it's a bit late in the process, but we did speak with Otero yesterday, and wrote up this post about him.
Hillsborough County has been the province of Republicans representing in Tallahassee, with the exception of Tampa. In HD-63, Democrat Mark Danish is trying to knock off Republican Shawn Harrison. Danish talked yesterday with CL's Michael Newberger.
Another Democrat running in usual solid Red country, Eastern Hillsborough County, is attorney Gail Gottlieb. Yesterday she awoke to learning of a mailer sent out by the Republican Party of Florida on behalf of her opponent, Ross Spano, accusing her of essentially being a domestic terrorist.
