Obama’s ‘Appalachia problem’ isn’t fading away

It looks like the Hillaryland of later Democratic primaries is FAR from embracing Obama. No wonder. Between the tenacious grip of the Muslim rumors, the “elitism” talk, the soft bigotry, hard bigotry and occasional outright racism, he’s got an uphill battle.

The nut graf is buried near the end of page 2:

Beyond the necessity of connecting with rural America, the Obama campaign is hoping to gain ground by winning over suburban independents in battleground states. In Columbus, Ohio, I encountered several white, upper-middle-class swing voters who said they would support Obama. But Terry Daniels, 53, a black man who runs a clothing store in downtown Columbus catering to the city's suburbanites, was skeptical that would happen. “Everyone likes to think they’re progressive,” Daniels said, “but when it comes down to it, they’re not going to vote that way.”

If Daniels is right, Obama has a notable Bradley/Wilder effect problem in Appalachia and its outliers like the automotive-world parts of Michigan.

Polls can’t factor that in, but I can factor it into polling splits.

As Election-Vote and FiveThirtyEight report more state-by-state polls in coming weeks, I will allow for a Bradley/Wilder effect of a couple of percentage points in some of these states.