A Mason-Dixon poll of the state, released on Saturday, gave Mitt Romney a nine-point lead there. Mr. Romney’s nine-point lead matches his advantage from another poll of the state, conducted by the firm We Ask America, which was released earlier this week.
The forecast model now estimates that Mr. Romney has an 88 percent chance of winning Missouri in November. And Missouri has fallen off the list of tipping point states, meaning that it is very unlikely to be a decisive state in determining the winner of the Electoral College. The cases where Mr. Obama wins Missouri are probably those where he is headed toward some sort of near-landslide in the national race, like because of an unexpected rebound in the economy.
Democrats have made gains in some parts of the country in recent years — most notably in the Mountain West and in Virginia, which has increasingly begun to behave as a Northern state. But they have receded in the poorer states of the upland South, like Missouri, Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia.
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