Another stat: Of the 10 states he has skipped entirely, 9 are solidly Republican, the other is Vermont.
(USA Today) — When President Obama travels on business, politics isn’t far behind.
In the 2½ years he has been president, Obama has traveled to 40 states. Not counting Virginia and Maryland because of their proximity to the White House, half of his visits have been to the 13 “swing” states that likely will decide the 2012 presidential race. Only 16% have been to safe Republican states.
When it comes to policy events that focused on the economy, twice as many visits have been to swing states. Outside of the Washington metropolitan area, Ohio is the clear leader, with the industrial Midwest getting heavy attention.
A USA TODAY review of Obama’s public events clearly shows that he favors battleground states the most, with Democratic states most useful for fundraising and Republican states seldom visited:
- The states that were closest in the 2008 election — Missouri, North Carolina, Indiana and Florida — have received at least five Obama visits each. His first trip as president was to Indiana, which he won by less than 1%. Before that week was out, he also hit Florida and Virginia, both crucial swing states.
- Heavily Democratic New York, California, Illinois and Massachusetts get ample attention because of their size and fundraising capability. Twenty-four of 38 visits to those four states included political events.
- Obama has skipped 10 states entirely — nine of them solidly Republican. The other, tiny Vermont, is solidly Democratic and has received just two presidential visits in 35 years. Only in May did Obama visit Kentucky and Tennessee for the first time.