Pennsylvania, Florida | featured news

Sporadic problems were reported Tuesday at polling places around the country, including a confrontation in Pennsylvania involving Republican inspectors over access to some polls and a last-minute court fight in Ohio over election software. One Florida elections office mistakenly told voters in robocalls the election was on Wednesday....

A new poll shows President Barack Obama opening a double-digit lead over former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in two of the nation's three largest swing states.

Citing a poll conducted by Global Strategy Group and Garin-Hart-Yang Research Group in the battleground states of Colorado, Ohio, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Florida, Priorities USA claimed that more voters say Romney’s experience at Bain makes them less likely to vote for him, 37% to 27%. Claiming that its own anti-Bain ads are working, Priorities USA pointed out that in the 11 markets they’ve advertised in within those five states, Obama leads Romney by eight points (49% to 41%) compared with a three-point lead in those without the ads (46% to 43%).

While nationally the two rivals are locked in a dead heat, in 12 expected battleground states — Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin — Obama leads by eight points in the survey.

President Obama, Republican challenger Mitt Romney, and their allies have already spent $87 million on TV ads, the Associated Press reports -- most of it in nine battleground states. They are, not surprisingly, nine toss-up states that will likely decide the election: Florida, Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina, Iowa, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Nevada and New Hampshire.

The GOP envisions a road to a Senate majority — it needs a net gain of four seats to win control — but at this stage, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Florida aren't prime real estate.

Last week's election was bad for Democrats. The next one could be worse. Senate Democrats running in 2012 will be trying to hold their jobs in states where Republicans just scored major congressional and gubernatorial victories - Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, New Mexico and Virginia.