Obama is still given a better than 55% odds of winning on Intrade.  This is less relevant so many months ahead of the election.  Dan Mitchell also predicts an Obama victory at his wonderful blog, International Liberty, in Predicting the November Election with Four Months to Go. He counts the electoral votes and the likelihood of success state by state.  If just a few of the swing states or leaning states switch Romney could win.

Karl Rove details an erosion of suport groups in Obama’s Shrinking Majority in the Wall Street Journal.

I risk being swayed by wishful thinking, but Rove mirrors my opinion.  It seems that Obama aims at groups he is already strong with.  His immigration policy announcement may carry weight with the hispanic voters but that is also a group he was already strong with.  The same is true of women and blacks.

He has lost support among Jews.  This may not hurt him New York and Illinois where their reduced support is not enough to turn a blue state red, but it could cost him Florida.  I also feel he will do worse with Catholics and the elderly.  Even among the youth he will win the majority but it will be a smaller majority.  I see far fewer groups where he is growing than I do where he is sinking.

In spite of his substantial victory in ’08, only 3.5% of his supports needs to either switch or stay home in 2012. The biggest liability he has incurred is his record.  I find it difficult to fathom that he is not in a substantially weaker position this time.

The fact that blacks support the Democratic party so overwhelmingly limits their political power.  They do not have enough clout with the Republicans to merit political risk and they are taken for granted by the Democrats. The fact that Romney addressed the NAACP crowd and Obama did not speaks volumes.

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