I’m a week late on this; it’s been in my stack for awhile and the latest polling numbers from Gallup and Real Clear Politics reminded me that I need to push this out the door:

Suffolk University pollster David Paleologos, whose polls are aggregated into mainstream averages to show where the presidential race stands in the swing states, said he’s finished polling in Florida, North Carolina and Virginia because President Obama has no shot of winning those states.

“I think in places like North Carolina, Virginia and Florida, we’ve already painted those red, we’re not polling any of those states again,” Paleologos said Tuesday night on Fox’s “The O’Reilly Factor.” “We’re focusing on the remaining states.”

To be sure, Suffolk isn’t a polling firm I’m familiar with and they may very well be wrong.  But when a guy is watching trends this is big.

In 1948 the Chicago Tribune printed a headline announcing that Dewey had defeated Truman.  History shows, of course, that Truman was victorious.  I resonate with this feeling as we enter the final stretches of the 2012 election.  And to rely even more on historical anecdote, I’ll cal upon the old Nixon rag, “I can’t believe he won.  No one I know voted for him.”

This is where I find myself now.  I’m surrounded by everyone that thinks Obama will win.   But I know only a few people who will vote for him.

Will Obama Win The Election

Everyone I know feels that Obama is going to win the election this fall.  This includes the folks I talk to that are Obama supporters as well as those who are Romney supporters.  Obama is going to win.

But.

Very few people I know are going to vote for Obama.  And this includes a significant number of people who voted for the President last election.

Who Will Win The States

Obviously the election will come down to individual states and who will win the electoral votes.  And that’s where it gets interesting.  National polls showing such and such ahead are fun but in the end, not very useful.  A more accurate view of who is going to win comes down to who wins each state.

And it i s possible to predict who wins each state:

A University of Colorado analysis of state-by-state factors leading to the Electoral College selection of every U.S. president since 1980 forecasts that the 2012 winner will be Mitt Romney.

The key is the economy, say political science professors Kenneth Bickers of CU-Boulder and Michael Berry of CU Denver. Their prediction model stresses economic data from the 50 states and the District of Columbia, including both state and national unemployment figures as well as changes in real per capita income, among other factors.

“Based on our forecasting model, it becomes clear that the president is in electoral trouble,” said Bickers, also director of the CU in DC Internship Program.

Based on the individual state economies, Obama loses to Romney.  Obama isn’t able to overcome the unemployment levels that have dominated the experience of voters in states all over the nation.

Will Obama win?  I continue to think so.  However, “no one I know is going to vote for him.”