AS THE deadline for voter registration arrived yesterday in many US states, Barack Obama's campaign seemed poised to benefit from a wave of newcomers to the rolls in key states in numbers that far outweigh any gains made by Republicans.
In the past year the rolls have expanded by some four million voters in a dozen key states - 11 Obama targets that were carried by George Bush in 2004 (Ohio, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, Indiana, Missouri, Colorado, Iowa, Nevada and New Mexico) plus Pennsylvania, the largest state carried by John Kerry that Republican nominee John McCain is targeting.
In Florida, Democratic registration gains this year have more than doubled Republican gains; in Colorado and Nevada the ratio is 4 to 1, and in North Carolina it is 6 to 1. Even in states with nonpartisan registration, the trend is clear - of the 310,000 new voters in Virginia, a disproportionate share live in Democratic strongholds.
Republicans acknowledge the challenge but say Obama still has to prove he can get the new voters to the polls.
The Obama campaign says it expects the numbers of new voters in swing states to swell even more later this month as election offices process the tens of thousands of registrations still pouring in. And it exudes confidence about its ability to turn the new voters out with a vigorous follow-up operation.
Mr Obama, who led a major voter drive in Chicago in 1992, has stressed registration from the outset of his campaign, seeing younger or disaffected Americans as a crucial pool of support. The campaign intensified its outreach over the summer, dispatching hundreds of staff members and volunteers to states with large percentages of unregistered voters.
Complementing its efforts are organisations that have been registering hundreds of thousands on their own, such as Democracia USA, which registers Hispanic voters; Acorn, the anti-poverty group; and Women's Voices, Women Vote, which targets unmarried women.
In Florida, 800,000 voters have been added to the rolls this year, fewer than were added in 2004. But the Democratic edge is still more apparent than it was in 2004, when Republicans made a big push to register evangelical Christians in the state. As of September 1st Democratic rolls were up by 316,000, Republican rolls by 129,000, and independents by 155,000.
The ratio is more lopsided in North Carolina, where Democrats have added 208,000 voters this year. The 34,000 voters the Republicans have added lags well behind the 148,000 new independents. A disproportionate share of the new voters in the state are minorities.
Gary Pearce, a Democratic political consultant in North Carolina, said the gap in new registrations is a big reason he thinks Democrats have a chance of carrying the state for the first time since 1976.
In Nevada, site of a highly competitive Democratic caucus in late January, the party has this year added 91,000 people to the rolls in a state that Bush carried by only 21,000 votes in 2004.
The primaries produced an even bigger boost in Pennsylvania. In addition to several hundred thousand new voters registered as Democrats, tens of thousands of independent voters and Republicans switched their affiliation to vote for Mr Obama or Mrs Clinton.
Some of them may vote for Mr McCain, but the numbers are nonetheless eye-catching. This year, 474,000 Democrats have been added to the rolls in Pennsylvania - while the Republican rolls have actually lost 38,000 voters.
In Virginia, where Obama volunteers have been a constant presence at Metro stations and grocery stores in Democratic areas, there are 310,000 more voters than at year's start. That compares with 210,000 new voters over the same stretch in 2004.
In Colorado, which Bush won by 100,000 votes in 2004, Republicans are on the verge of being overtaken.
The Obama campaign predicts that 80 per cent of the voters it is registering will support Mr Obama, and that 75 per cent will turn out, a rate it bases on turnout during the primaries. - (LA Times-Washington Post service)