New Jersey

[hopper]

I live in NJ and I think Romney's rhetoric on immigration(i.e. "self deport") killed him with Asians in Middlesex County and maybe Bergen County by the George Washington Bridge area. Talking abut sending the issue of abortion rights in a state like NJ as a non-starter also. Social Issue did Romney in in this state.

[hopper]

The long term prospects of the GOP in New Jersey aren't great, but Obama's margins here were almost entirely attributable to Sandy.

Yeah the Black, Asian and especially the Hispanic Population are growing while the white population stays flat so yeah demography changes in the state are not beneficial to the GOP at all plus the GOP's Hard Right Turn in the past 2 years doesn't play well here either. The House and Governor's Races are different though as opposed to the US Senate and Presidential Races in NJ.

[hopper]

The long term prospects of the GOP in New Jersey aren't great, but Obama's margins here were almost entirely attributable to Sandy.

Obama was going to win NJ by 11-12 pts anyway.  He won by 18.  Romney would have gotten about 44%, instead he got 40%.  That would suggest that for every 11 Romney voters, 1 had their mind changed by the Sandy response and the praise given to him by their governor (who is extremely popular amongst NJ Republicans).  Honestly, knowing the state, that sounds about right.  Turnout took a 200,000 vote hit as well, let's not forget that. 

So NJ would have been a D+4 or D+5 PVI this year if not for Sandy as opposed to the D+7 that it was this year. Nate Silver had the state 55-45 in favor of Obama pre-election.