The New Battlegrounds
America's political map is truly changing. U.S. News reporters hit the road to find out how—and why
As the presidential race accelerates following a spate of intense campaigning over the Labor Day weekend, an army of pundits, reporters, consultants, and pollsters is trying to divine the meaning of it all.
U.S. News has a better idea—get out among the people. Our objective is to assess the mood of the voters in a handful of bellwether congressional districts, which our reporters will visit periodically, right up until Election Day in November 2008. We'll encourage regular folks to explain their concerns and tell us what's going right and wrong. In the process, we'll also look at America's ongoing transformation, traveling to regions—like the Rocky Mountain states—that are growing and changing and thus scrambling the electoral calculus for the upcoming presidential contest.
For our first round, we are focusing on the Eighth Congressional District in central Florida, a Republican-leaning area in the state's growing Interstate 4 corridor. We also chose the First District in Iowa, centered in Dubuque. This area has become a swing district, electing a Democrat to the U.S. House of Representatives for the first time in three decades. Both districts will be crucial in deciding who wins the presidential nominations of each party—Iowa with its caucuses and Florida with its primary. Similarly, both will be decisive battlegrounds in the general election.
It's clear that voters are already paying attention, because they believe the stakes are high. We'll keep a close eye on them in a continuing reality check on Campaign 2008.
This story appears in the September 10, 2007 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.