Obama's bus tour: Looking for blue collar votes in critical blue counties

President Barack Obama waves with first lady Michelle Obama after a campaign rally at The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio, Saturday, May 5, 2012.

/ AP Photo/Mark Duncan

(CBS News) President Obama's two-day bus trip starting Thursday through Northern Ohio and Western Pennsylvania is a trip largely through places he won before and where he'll need to succeed again. This is no swing-county tour; this is a lot of need-to-have, not nice-to-have territory for any Democrat hoping to win these states.

And he needs solid margins here, too, which means generating excitement (i.e., turnout) can be as important as persuasion. Any substantial loss of voters along this route either to Mitt Romney - or to lower turnout - would deal a blow to his chances.

Beyond the vote math, these areas more broadly signal both opportunity and peril for Mr. Obama with key segments of voters, particularly in manufacturing and blue-collar industries. There are plenty of ties to the auto business in these areas as well as to new industries, which offers him a chance to trumpet his policies. But it also means these are a lot of the people who've been especially hard hit by the economy's downturn -- and with whom he's had trouble so far.

Visiting Toledo, in the northwestern part of the state, brings him to a fairly large county (Lucas) that he took by a two to one margin in 2008, netting him a quarter of his whole statewide margin. It has ties to the auto industry, and here he can neither afford a lighter turnout nor the loss of a large percent of that margin. Next is Sandusky, Ohio, in Erie county. It has fewer voters than Toledo, but it's an area he won in 2008, another important manufacturing center, and another possible indicator of his fortunes - plus, it keeps him the media market, which all told holds almost three-quarters of a million voters in its counties. (In trips like this it's often about reaching out in the media market and securing a spot on the local airwaves as much as the voters the campaign sees in person.)

In Parma, outside Cleveland, we see again the importance of rallying the voters he won last time. A fairly large city in itself, it's part of Cuyahoga county - Cleveland - which forms part of the bedrock of any Democratic formula to win the state. In 2008, Obama won Cuyahoga county with a whopping 69 percent of the vote. Well over 650,000 votes were cast there four years ago, which is roughly the number of votes he won the state by last time around.

A quick look at the map below demonstrates just how important northern and northeastern Ohio are to the president. Counties marked in blue, notably those in this densely populated area, helped propel him to the win four years ago; they are also the area of this week's trip. There are about three million voters in the Cleveland-Akron market.

CBS News

Akron, moving southeast of Cleveland to Summit county, is especially worth watching. It's part of an area (along with nearby Canton in Stark county, which was a tighter Obama win last time) that has looked to transition from older manufacturing to more high-tech industries, and may also be another indicator of how well the president can do with working-class and blue-collar voters.

In 2008, white voters without college degrees were half the Ohio electorate. Mr. Obama lost Ohioans of this group in 2008 to John McCain - but for the president, it isn't about winning this group, it will be a question of keeping the "gap" at least somewhat smaller assuming he loses them. In a Quinnipiac poll of Ohio last month, the race was basically tied statewide, but Mr. Obama was trailing Romney by well into double-digits among that group. Mr. Obama's deficit was ten points four years ago. A key indicator to watch, come the fall, will be if he trails by a much wider margin.

(As an aside, it's also interesting is that in the GOP primary, among Republicans, Romney lost this group to Rick Santorum. Watch too as we head into fall for signs of whether these voters aren't enthralled with either candidate.)

The president has been leading in polls in Pennsylvania, bolstered in part by strong support from the large number of Democrats in the state and a slight lead with independents. But there are warning signs for him. In a recent Quinnipiac poll, voters there gave Romney the edge on jobs and the economy. Less than half were satisfied with how things are going in the state, including those in the western parts and Pittsburgh area.

In Pittsburgh, where Mr. Obama wraps up his trip Friday, once again it's not necessarily about affecting a swing, it's about keeping his voters in the fold. In 2008 as he won the state comfortably, Pittsburgh's Alleghany county alone contributed about one-sixth, or 100,000, votes to his statewide margin. If this year we see a closer election, its impact becomes magnified.

More broadly, the Pittsburgh and western part of the state encompass almost one-fourth of the statewide vote. Mr. Obama won the region over McCain in 2008 (if we count the region from Johnstown west) but if Romney is going to win statewide, then this region, as well as in those outlying Philly suburbs, are likely the places he can and will need to make inroads. (He'll likely win the Republican-leaning the central part.) In the smaller electorate of the midterms, the western part of the state went Republican - indicating there are plenty of voters in play her, as well. Supposing, hypothetically, the race this year looks more like it did in 2004 and Mr. Obama doesn't perform quite as well back east in the suburbs of Philly, the other bookend of the Democratic formula for the state, than only increases the importance of Pittsburgh.

In all, battling through this part of the country is nothing new for an Obama campaign. Recall that all the way back to the 2008 primaries, a lot of this region had first backed Hillary Clinton; one of the key tests in November four years ago was whether Mr. Obama could win over these voters. For the most part, he did. But he'll have to work to hold them again.

[ObamasGuppies]

8.2% unemployment. All Dictators around the world must be eliminated, even the one here in the United States.

[RollotheNorman]

Yeah, Willard the Wanna-be? He's real punk, not that old Presidential timber at all.

[Congressive]

I love these RED/BLUE maps that show definitively how people voted for Obama and corn voted for McCain.

[mrmeal00]

Of course Obama's got Lorain and Cleveland; they're both predominantly black... and like a black person would ever vote for Romney. What a joke.

[ObamasGuppies]

You nailed it. We have people here in South Carolina that have mail boxes worth more than their homes and they'll still vote for Obama because he's black. I have no pity on idiots that go back for seconds. Suffer Liberals!!!!

[wfw3536]

Obama is going to tell these blue collar workers how much he believes in keeping jobs in our country, but will he be honest with them that the 2 buses he uses come from Canada at a cost of 1.1 million each. Oh the hypocrisy.

[RollotheNorman]

The US Government generally has a "buy American" policy. Common sense would tell anyone with half a brain that "buy American" would certainly apply to a product that's main function was to protect the POTUS, such as the armored buses you reference. There are American sources of armored civilian vehicles; apparently none had the capacity to armor these buses to meet the delivery time frame.

[Liberty_in_MA]

HaHa Rollo - Yeah, the unionized auto workers whose jobs Obama "saved" at the expense of the stockholders, bondholders, and creditors could not build buses on time. Gee, I guess we now know why they needed to be "saved". If a Canadian can make something faster than you, you probably need to be "saved". So what you're saying is that if Obama would have purchased Japanese, German, or Korean buses I guess he could have gotten them even faster, eh?

[CaptainSmollett]

When are these blue-collar voters going to realize that they must choose between opportunity or dependancy. Obama has utterly failed to provide economic opportunity, and his ideology and policies are counter to that goal.

[RollotheNorman]

I can see by your reply you have never been a blue collar worker. What do you do anyhow? Are you in Banking, Insurance, or Sales?

[RollotheNorman]

Seems you're the guy with the reading comprehension problem there knucklehead. Where is it I said der Kaptain slamed blue collar worker's? Read it back to me, moron. I did say he was obviously not a blue collar worker, an observation I thought appropriate to his tone.

[MaxyRaddy]

Happy birthday to a country that elected a president that won't salute the flag. Paradox?

[nancy_naive]

http://www.sodahead.com/entertainment/sodahead-slideshow-whos-the-biggest-comic-con-god/blog-383653/

[rksharma-2009]

First of all he does salute the flag and second, the best way to prove that he salutes the flag by working for all the people and not for just 1% of the people. So he salutes the flag for all the people.

[nancy_naive]

"And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor."
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton ,John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry, Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery, Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott, William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris, Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark, Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross, Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean, Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton, George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton, William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn, Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton, Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton



AND NOT ONE HAD A SWISS BANK ACCOUNT!

[stormerF69]

So for 2 days and 2 mulitmillion dollar buses Obama is on campaign tour? I wonder how many people can afford to spend Millions of dollars on their day trips?

[RealWorldNow]

You mean the bus' that are made in Canada?

[RollotheNorman]

Read 'em and weep RepubliCON patses, the truth about how Rubert Murdoch sold you a big bag of s---.

http://www.factcheck.org/2011/08/obamas-canadian-american-bus/

http://www.politico.com/blogs/joshgerstein/0411/22_million_pricetag_for_Obamas_new_armored_buses.html

http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/thepresidentandcabinet/ss/How-Much-Obamas-Bus-Cost.htm

http://www.tactical-life.com/online/news/armored-secret-service-bus-to-hit-campaign-trail/

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/04/new-campaign-bus-will-carry-2012-presidential-candidates-with-greater-security/