The fate of Obama and Romny in the hands of Ohio

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Ohio is considered one of the most boring states. But on November 6, the attention of all America will be focused on him. The result of national elections can only depend on this state.

"Ohio is hell. Frost there costs nine months of 12. This state consists of farms and a pair of megalopolises full of frosts, drugs and crazy drivers. If you are intentionally going to move to this hell for no good reason, you should turn to a psychologist," this is one of the definitions of the state of Ohio, which is given in the Urbandictionary Encyclopedia. (analogue of the Russian Encyclopedia of the Lurcmorye memory).

Or more: “Ohio is a synonym for the words“ sucks ”,“ Ohio takes the second place in the list of the most boring US states (first place in Western Virginia - approx. Ed.), “Ohio, probably the most awesome state of all. It is flat, empty and filled with empty people. There is no need to ride around Ohio: there is nothing to watch there, there is nowhere to stop and there is nowhere to eat decently. "A T -shirt with the inscription" Ohio - the worst state in the world "can be bought on the Internet for $ 30.

But on November 6, on the day of the election, all of America will carefully monitor the most boring staff. For the past half -century, the Ohio factor has been working flawlessly: the candidate who wins in this state becomes president. Therefore, Obama and Romni are spending a lot of effort and money precisely on Ohio. Over the past month, Obama and his vice president Joe Biden visited Ohio 10 times, Mitt Romny and his No. 2 Paul Ryan - 21 times. According to NBC, candidates together spent $ 177 million on a campaign in Ohio. This is more than in any other state.

Ohio factor is possible thanks to the American elected system. There are no direct elections in the USA: the President is chosen by the college of electors. There are 538 of them, on how they are distributed, and the result of the election depends. Moreover, in most states (except for the states of Maine and Nebraska), the votes of electors are distributed according to the majority system: the electors vote for the candidate who gained the majority of votes in their staff. Therefore, situations arise when, for example, in the same Florida with a population of 20 million people, a candidate will win with a gap of only a thousand votes, all state electors will vote for him.

Let's take a look at the map:

According to RealClearpolitics

Since the 1930s, when public opinion polls began to appear, presidential candidates became more cunning. If you look at the map, you can see that there are states purely republican, but there are purely democratic ones. Candidates consider such states safe for themselves. For example, Obama may safely worry about California: in this state, with rare exceptions, they traditionally vote for the Democrats. And Texas will always prefer the Republicans, whoever was their presidential candidate. Valileeous states - that’s why the candidates are fighting. “As usual in a big noisy family, all the attention of parents goes to problem children, and not to calm and obedient,” writes La Times , David Horssey.

To date, the hesitating states is 11. But the closer the elections, the clearer the balance of power in these states. So, according to RealClearpolitics, in a huge Florida with 29 electors, most polls in favor of Romny, but the separation there is small (1.5%), and Pennsylvania, most likely, gets Obama (since the beginning of the year he has a 5%advantage in this state). Ohio is still unpredictable: if in May Obama ahead of the opponent by 4%, now the gap has doubled. In Ohio, 900 thousand Republicans and 825 thousand democrats were registered. But there are 6 million non -partisans.

In many ways, Ohio is unpredictable because of his demography: the electorate of both Romni and Obama is equally shared here. There are wealthy voters, both rural voters, and elderly voters who will vote for Romny. But there is a rapidly growing Latin electorate, casting votes over Obama. In addition, every eighth workplace in the state is associated with the auto -industry, which Obama raises, which means the voices of these people, too, will most likely go to him.

The Obama team insists that Ohio will be behind them because they keep an account. Since the gap between the candidates in this state is rapidly reduced, the president travels there twice a week, where he repeats again: "I need your help, Ohio. America needs you." The Romni team insists that in Ohio "Equality of points" (there are no surveys with such a result) and promises its voters that the remaining for a couple of days will catch up and distort its opponent: "If Ohio votes for me, I will be the next president of the United States."

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