How are these swing states trending?

[Gustaf]

Ohio-R
Pennsylvania-nowhere
Minnesota-Nowhere
Wisconsin-Nowhere
Michigan-Slight Dem
Nevada-D
Arizona-Nowhere, will stay solid GOP for awhile
New Mexico-D
Colorado-D
Florida-D
Iowa-R
New Hampshire-D
Missouri-R
Virginia-D
West Virginia-R

This seems reasonable to me. However, it should be noted that some of these states have a long way to go, others are sold and little trend left.

[Gustaf]

The national average is irrelevant. If MORE PEOPLE in the state vote REPUBLICAN, the state is NOT moving Democrat. It is moving LESS REPUBLICAN than the national average.

Not true. If you reason like that analysis becomes pointless. In 1964 the entire country was trending Dem, except the Deep South. Then in 1968 it was all trending GOP, even more so in 1972. And so on and so on. It's completely pointless. Presidential elections are largely decided on personality. To make sense out of it you have to look at national averages.

[Gustaf]

Tredrick, you have a point, yes. However, let's assume, for simplicity's sake (it isn't that simple, of course in real life) that there are 2 groups of voters in the country; those that lean Democrat and those that lean Republican. In a state like MA, which is solidly Democratic the dividing line betweeen D and R might be around 60-40. In the country it's roughly 50-50. Now if, for some reason the Democratic candidate is a little weaker than usual this will make some of the slight Dem voters vote for the Republican candidate. There might be more of those voters in certain places than in others. This means that roughly the same percentage of voters everywhere will move. This is of course oversmplified, but you get the idea. Californians and Alabamans (?) are affected by the same issues, policies, etc as all other voters. If a party fields a really weak candidate who appear to be an extremist, etc he might lose a lot of centrist voters, losing 40-60 nationally. Your line of thinking means that every time there is a landslide there is a national trend in favour of one party. In 1964 you would have doomed Republican chances of ever winning any election. 1972 you would have done the exact opposite.

The point is that a short-term political change in one election, such as Kerry being percieved as a weak Taxachussetts Liberal or Goldwater looking like a racist nutjob, etc have no long-term meaning. In a 2-party system things tend to even out in the long run. However, underlying demographic or other trends that changes a state's relation to the national average is a sound basis for analyses. The largest problem is that the setup of swing voters is not the same everywhere, which means that swings aren't uniform in all states.