Cassidy’s Count: Romney’s Surge Continues: Florida Breaks to G.O.P.

Thursday night’s ding-dong Vice-Presidential debate may have cheered up Democratic supporters, but opinion polls across the country are continuing to show Mitt Romney making up ground on Barack Obama. Obviously, the polls don’t yet reflect public reaction to the Biden-Ryan show. But whatever impact the Veep debate has—and I don’t think it will be major—we now know that Romney’s post-debate bounce was more than a two- or three-day phenomenon: the debate changed the dynamics of the race like no other event this year.

In the national polls, Romney is now running slightly ahead of Obama (though within the margin of error), and in the key battleground states, he is also closing on him, and in some cases moving ahead. Reflecting this fact, I am making a couple of significant changes to The New Yorker’s electoral map—also known as Cassidy’s Count—which I last updated on Monday. In particular, I am shifting Florida from toss-up to leaning Romney, and New Hampshire from leaning Obama to toss-up. (By toss-up, I mean the state is too close to call.) In addition, I am keeping a beady eye on Colorado, Iowa, Ohio, Nevada, and Wisconsin, five more states where Romney has made up a lot of ground. For the moment, though, I am keeping Colorado as a toss-up and the other four states as leaning Obama.

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