It doesn't feel like a swing state, but Missouri insists on remaining one

Mitt Romney in Kirkwood, Missouri, campaigning for the primary. He'd rather not have to go back for the general election. (Sarah Conard/Reuters) Of all the close battleground states in 2008, Missouri is the only one that went to John McCain, doing so by the narrowest of margins. It was just the second time since 1900 that Missouri voted for the loser in a presidential election, and the first time since 1956. Missouri's status as a bellwether was endangered by a clear (if slow) trend toward the GOP. Indeed, Missouri ended up voting 7.4 percent more Republican than the national average in 2008.

With Obama's national standing eroded since 2008, the conventional wisdom is that Missouri isn't in play. The Obama campaign certainly doesn't seem to exhibit much enthusiasm for the state, compared to, say, their aggressiveness in Arizona and North Carolina. And it's a state with below-average numbers in the demographic groups that drive the Obama coalition'African Americans, Latinos, young voters, college grads, creative class workers, etc. The state is 81 percent non-Hispanic white, compared to the national average of 63.7 percent.

Nate Silver is a rare pundit voice arguing that Obama could improve his standing in Missouri'but only be embracing an Occupy-style economic populism. And he's certainly right that Romney has had difficulties in the Midwest'it was Rick Santorum's most fertile ground. But generally speaking, Missouri is a state people want to write off. It just doesn't feel like a swing state, so much so, that the only polling outfit surveying the state is the GOP's propaganda purveyors at Rasmussen. (Well, PPP has, but not since late January.) And Rasmussen's latest fresh numbers?

Obama 45
Romney 48

That's a supposed tightening from a mid-March Rasmussen survey that had Romney winning handily 50-41'at a time when Romney has been tightening the race in national polling.

Missouri will never be a key state in Obama's electoral map. He doesn't need it. But it's fantastic news for Team Blue if it remains in play. Anything that forces Romney to play defense in the McCain states (and right now, only Arizona joins Missouri in possibly fitting that bill) means less time to play the extensive offense he needs to win the White House.