Nevada among 9 swing states in presidential race
By Michael Cooper, New York Times
Since the housing bubble burst, Nevada has been plagued with record foreclosures, the nation’s steepest drop in home values and its highest unemployment rate.
Iowa, on the other hand, may have missed out on some of the boom but was spared the worst of the bust: its housing prices have stayed relatively stable, and it now has the fifth-lowest unemployment rate in the country.
Ohio suffered a steeper than average loss of jobs during the recession, but it has since seen its unemployment rate fall below the national average.
All three are among the handful of swing states likely to decide who wins the presidential election — states in different stages of a slow economic recovery.
With just over six months until Election Day, an analysis of the emerging electoral map by The New York Times found that the outcome would most likely be determined by how well President Obama and Mitt Romney perform in nine tossup states.
All nine voted for Obama in 2008, only to see Republicans make big gains since then.
Now, with many of those states transformed economically and politically by the recession, they are perhaps even less predictable than they were in past close elections. The disparity in their circumstances highlights the challenges that both the Obama and the Romney campaigns face in framing arguments that will resonate across the country.