Seven battleground states: Does economy help Obama or Romney?

Seven states have emerged as battlegrounds that may well determine the 2012 presidential election. Here's a look at seven battleground states and how their economic situation is shaping the presidential election:

6. Virginia

Adrin Snider/The Daily Press/AP/File
Ann Romney greets well-wishers during a stop in Williamsburg, Va., on Friday, Oct. 26, 2012. Of all the battleground states, Virginia is the most vulnerable to the 'fiscal cliff,' because more than a quarter of its economy is supported by federal spending.

When it comes to job growth, Virginia reflects the national employment pattern perhaps better than any of the other battleground states. It's smack in the middle – No. 25 among the states – in terms of job creation over the past year (tied with Michigan). It has seen a small decrease in manufacturing (3,300 jobs lost) and an offsetting rise in health and education (16,300 jobs gained).

Like Iowa, Virginia started the recovery with an advantage. It avoided much of the Great Recession, so unemployment never reached the national highs. In September, Virginia's rate was 5.9 percent vs. 7.8 percent nationally. It has regained nearly three-quarters of the jobs it lost during the recession.

But the state is more vulnerable than almost all states to the so-called "fiscal cliff" – the federal spending cuts that loom if Congress can't agree on budget cuts. Federal spending buoys more than a quarter of Virginia's economy. The US government directly employs nearly 5 percent of workers in the state and, indirectly, far more private-sector employees who depend on government contracts for their livelihood. By one estimate, the fiscal cliff would eliminate 200,000 jobs – more than the state lost during the Great Recession and about 4 percent of Virginia's employment base.

The state government ended fiscal 2012 in June with a budget surplus of $448 billion, which meant state government workers got a 3 percent bonus. But even small cutbacks in federal spending will put a future damper on an economy with so-so growth.

Advantage: A statistical tie.

6 of 7

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”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

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.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

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.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.