Florida, Appalachia and Everywhere in Between

John McCain should win Florida. The numbers favor the GOP-standard bearer. The Sunshine State has gone Republican the last two presidential elections and it has a popular Republican incumbent. Yet, an overconfidence by Team McCain, a housing slump and massive investment by the Obama campaign has put Florida in play. If McCain loses the state, he'll regret neglecting it after he cinched the GOP nomination in the spring.

On the other hand, Team Obama has continued to press for blue-collar rural white votes in Appalachia. While I still expect McCain to win West Virginia - it is a reliably Republican state at the presidential level - I do expect Obama to outperform Kerry from '04 and Gore from '00.

Yet, the news is not all bad for the GOP. The GOP is holding its own for the myriad statehouse competitions. While the national GOP is toxic this election-cycle, national level concerns don't always trickle down to local races, where more immediate concerns like trash pickup and pothole repair dominate.