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Why do Election 2012 swing states matter? 5 resources to explain.

Looking for better analysis on swing states? D.C. Decoder has compiled a list of excellent resources to help you understand the impact swing states really have.

4. RealClearPolitics

Tony Dejak/AP/File
This January file photo shows a woman voting at the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections in Cleveland as early voting began in Ohio's March presidential primary.

RealClearPolitics takes mapping the vote to the next level. Below its color-coded map, it lists the polling results for each state, and by how many points Obama or Romney leads. Readers can click on a specific state, like Florida, to see how voter attitudes have changed since November 2011. 

RealClearPolitics tracks the results of five different polls and then averages them to determine how much of a lead each candidate has in each state. They display the data in a simple line graph.

What’s unique about this feature is that readers can easily see how close the race really is in the swing states. The graph shows that as of Sept. 13, 47.6 percent of voters polled in Florida favored Obama, while 47 percent favored Romney.

There are plenty of filters and buttons and different ways of viewing the data, but what’s really impressive is the research backing up RealClearPolitics’ results. They link to the actual polls they used (in PDF form) so readers can see a list of questions Americans were asked, and the raw results.

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Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

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If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

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The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

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