Every indication is that the Democrats can expect to do well in the “New Western” states in future elections, as a result of trends that have favored them in the past few election cycles.
The “New West” is defined as those states not bordering on the Pacific Ocean. Three of them were won by President Obama in 2008–Nevada, Colorado and New Mexico. He came close in Montana and had a good chance in Arizona if John McCain had not been his opponent. These eight states have 17 representatives and seven senators and four governors who are Democrats.
With the growing Hispanic population in these states, the Democrats have strong odds to win the same three states they won in 2008, plus Montana and Arizona. One can forget Utah, Idaho and Wyoming, which are the three states most loyally Republican along with Oklahoma, according to other polls that indicate party loyalty.
So any indication that temporarily Obama’s public opinion ratings are declining fails to take into account that it will have very little effect in 2012, since the polls are very much a judgment of the moment subject to dramatic change over the next few years, and the Electoral College system heavily favors the President’s reelection, unless there is a major disaster or tragedy to change the minds of the mass of citizens.
It is hard after the economic collapse of 2008 to imagine any situation as dire as that to transform the national mood.