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I think the race will be a close one. I think for some people, the third presidential debate will either cement someone's choice or make them more hesitant. Romney needs to not make another mistake with his wording in regards to women while Obama needs to keep him energy up.

We read an article about this at Urban, but often the polls are unreliable. They can choose who they want to poll, how they contact the people they poll, and how they analyze the information. I'm not saying that this particular poll is wrong, just to take it with a grain of salt because I'm sure there are many polls that disagree with it.

I agree that this race will be very close, but, like the article we read, polls aren't always reliable.

To answer your question on who I think won, I would agree that Romney won the debate. Before the debate I had been reading a lot of articles which claimed that unless Romney pulled through with the debate, he had pretty much already lost the election. I think that debate helped him to 'bounce' back and have a shot to stay in the race rather than fall out even if it did not give him a real boost to be ahead. Additionally, the article showed wide gaps in the peoples' opinions on the less political traits of the candidates (relatable, likable, ect.) I am curious how much those polls actually matter if the difference is so vast between the candidates.

There is absolutly no way to say that Romney didn't win the debate. There was a strict set of facts that Obama could have used to harm the GOP in general, but he didn't. He stumbled through his last bits and filled his speech with tons of 'um', and spent the entire time looking down. Unfortunatly, a good bit of the population votes based on who they like as a person, and that can't be changed.

I am a little bit confused by the poll results, 51% of voters like Romney and 56% like Obama, but the article claims that Romney definitely won. If you are looking at, which candidate is liked better, there is not a huge difference between Romney and Obama, but Obama is obviously liked more. I would agree that Romney won the debate since he seemed more confident and secure with what he was trying to get across. I got to see a side of Romney that made him seem more powerful then Obama because I felt like Romney got more into the debate and was defending/attacking Obama.

I actually really enjoyed this article just in the way it was written. There have been a lot of articles on how it will affect the polls and for the most part there seem to be losses for both candidates. I think Obama handled the situation well but I think it could go either way if it will gain him support for his efforts off lose him support from the suffering people will be going through

I agree, I think it was a smart idea that Obama did not panic about the storm. I think if here were to have, then that would have probably stressed the people out making him seem unprepared for this disaster. I think this would have had an impact in the polls, but since he took the news of the storm in calm manner that I do not think it will affect the polls.

I think the storm was really interesting because it makes people forget about politics for a second and think about life. It turns from Republican or Democrat to life or death, so people's minds must be really turned around right now. I think Obama's gentle care - and if he continues to have success in calming the people - will be majorly to his advantage because he helped people in a time when their lives were at threat. This seems more memorable than a critical TV campaign, so I'm thinking the storm will help Obama if anything.

I'm wondering how Romney will try and win over certain groups that Obama has not "captured" yet. The article said he may have to reach out to men and college students if he wants to be competitive with Obama's appeal to women and minorities. In Romney's RNC speech he seemed so focused on women and in general, I haven't seen him reach out to men.

I thought this article summarized pretty much how I felt about the debate. They both did a good job and were fairly evenly matched but in my opinion, Biden may have done just a tiny bit better. That being said the poll asking people who they thought won (taken of the people who watched the debate) confirmed my suspicion that many republican viewers thought Ryan did as well, if not better than Biden.

I thought Biden and Ryan's debate was completely different from the presidential debate. I know many democrats were disappointed in Obama's lack of critical response to Romney's points, arguing that he could have shot them all down easily and logically. Biden seemed to compensate for that completely, making Ryan seem like he didn't really know what he was talking about. What I thought was interesting about this debate, though, was that who won seems completely subjective based on personality equally if not more than policy. Many might thing Ryan won because Biden was laughing in a perhaps rude way the whole time, while many might think Biden won because he deserved to laugh at Ryan for saying things that didn't entirely make sense. I think this almost has more to do with personality preference than policy preference because in our debate chat room, where most of us were democrats, there were arguments both that the laughing was rude and that the laughing was called for, passionate, and helpful in Biden's claim. Overall, Biden's casualness was a great contrast to the formal, almost scripted attitude of Ryan. This is why the debate seems to be so varied in public response, and to me, why it depends on what the individual listener wants to hear to decide who really won the debate.

In my opinion, Biden won, but it certainly wasn't a runaway like it was for Romney. I agree with you all that they were pretty evenly matched, and that a lot of who won is based on who you already like. I don't think that this debate will have a significant impact on the election.

I believe that Biden won for his ability to: connect to the viewers, shoot down all of Ryan's ideas, and emphasize all of the good things that have happened under his and Obama's office. Like Sabrina said, however, Biden did not blow away the competition like Romney did to Obama, but he did seem to do better than Ryan. Also, like Sabrina said, this debate won't mean much to the voters even though they did raise some policy issues.

Personally, this debate did mean something to me as a voter. It did not make me want to change my position or anything, but it did boost my confidence in my already-made choices. I am wondering if this has become more of the reasoning behind these debates, or if they are still created to make people decide on who they are voting for?

I actually can't wait until thursday's debate, I think it will be just as exciting as the first one was. Ryan is extremely intelligent and a statistical slammer, so it should be interesting to see how he debates.

This article is about how Obama's target audience in his advertising is mainly blue-collar women (middle aged white women without education). It brought up two major questions for me: 1. how important is advertising? It seems to be most affective when criticizing the opposing candidate. 2. how important are women (specifically blue-collar women) in this election? How do women's rights tie into the swing votes/why are many GOP-leaning blue-collar women now leaning towards Obama?

I found this very interesting, I normally don't really think of what the midwest's demographic is, but to see that it is blue-collar white women is super interesting. I also think the connection between advertising and the women is really powerful. The ads they are showing are definitely working since much of Obama's supports are their targeted audience.

It's funny that they focus on such a specific group. This quote stood out to me: "Democrats say blue-collar women have been the principal, and most receptive, target for their extended ad barrage portraying Romney as a plutocrat who is blind, if not indifferent, to the struggles of average families." The ads all seem to be focused on saying how bad Romney will be for these women, rather than Obama helping them. How can they know that Obama is really right for them if all they know is that they don't like Romney?

"Early voting is a major component of Obama's mobilization strategy, and is useful for ensuring that supporters who may have trouble getting to a polling station next month end up casting their ballots." This quote is really interesting and timely because of the storm that is about to spread across the east coast. I know early decision college applications have been pushed further out so I wonder what will happen if the election falls during this bad upcoming storm. Voting early seems to help many people who would not otherwise be able to get to the polls, but at some point-doesn't the process have to be standardized?

This was really interesting to me particularly after reading it just after posting my most recent article against early voting. Obama's campaign has been pushing hard for people to vote early in the opinion of Scott Paulson, it is an advantage to Obama. It will be interesting to see how that plays out but I am also curious why it would be good for Obama to have his supporters vote early but Romney isn't pushing it?

I think that as the incumbent Obama has automatically been criticized more easily. Romney can say basically anything but has not been president whereas Obama can be attacked for anything and everything he has done. Romney's changing opinions I think can be seen one of two ways: concerning or sometimes brave for allowing his opinions/beliefs to change publicly with time. I think those supporters of Romney will forgive his wavering whereas Obama supporters will not. I'm unsure how the swing voters will react to this...we'll have to wait and find out.

Although Obama stresses the positive outcomes from "reviving" General Motive,s I'm wondering why he didn't (maybe it just wasn't discussed in this article) continue talking about the jobs he will create. The unemployment rate is still high despite the Auto-industry bailout and I would think Ohio needs to hear what he WILL do along with what he has accomplished.

I think Obama is making a smart move to reflect on the improvements he has made in Ohio, but I agree with Danielle that it's strange that he doesn't mention future progress. He also revisits a risky idea that he mentioned in his DNC speech: that the road to recovery is long and far from easy, and we're just starting.

I can't imagine how it would feel to vote in a swing state. With the long lines in Florida and the difficulties in Ohio, it seems exhausting. I'm sure many people are relieved that the election is over with all of the campaigning. Reading this article just brings me back to what seems to be the flawed system of the electoral college. I obviously don't know what is the best alternative, but wouldn't some of this tension be reduced if we had a popular vote system?

I do think it will have an effect on voters but in two different ways. I think for a lot of people they will opt out of voting because they have more immediate things on their minds. Or others, I think that in hard times people are grateful for bigger governments and it could potentially convince voters to vote for Obama rather than Romney.

I don't think that Hurricane Sandy will have a significant effect on voters in the states that were hit. Sure there will be some people who simply can't get to voting machines or voting machines won't be working in their area but these people won't have a significant effect on the outcome of the election. It seems that the states hit by this hurricane have really stepped up in figuring out new ways for the people living in their states to vote. For example I read that a state, I believe it to be New Jersey, created an email ballet to make it convient for those people who can't reach a working polling machine to vote.

James, I guess my question was more based on the politics of the natural disaster, like FEMA aid or Christie's response.

I want to go off of Abby's point in that I also think people feel safer with larger governments in times of natural disasters. But I don't necessarily think people will change their votes after Hurricane Sandy. I also think it's important to remember that (at least I think/hope) any President would take a step back during these disasters and stop campaigning to focus on the people in need. But sure, Governor Christie's praise for Obama is a nice reminder that at the end of the day, both republicans and democrats have similar values.

I'm curious to follow Romney's and Obama's campaigning in Florida until the election. From my other reading, It seems as though Obama has secured the "minority" votes compared to Romney so wouldn't that continue over in Florida?