Commenting on Thomas Edsall’s New York Times post, “What’s Wrong With Pennsylvania?,” TDS managing editor Ed Kilgore notes at Washington Monthly that,

A New York Times post by Tom Edsall late last night makes an essential point about swing voter categories, and particularly the non-college educated “white working-class vote” that is supposedly the target of both parties this year: it varies significantly by region. National numbers for this demographic are distorted by the disproportionate GOP direction of southern white voters. Elsewhere, Democrats are not doing as poorly as the stereotypes suggest…

Kilgore quotes from Edsall’s post, adding:

Among southern working class whites, Romney leads by 40 points, 62-22, an extraordinary gap…The story in the rest of the country is different. In the West, where Colorado and Nevada are battleground states, Romney leads by a modest 5 points, 46-41. In the Northeast, which Obama is expected to sweep, except perhaps for New Hampshire, Romney holds a 4-point advantage among working class whites, 42-38. In the Midwest, where Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin are in play, Obama actually leads among working class whites by 8 points (44-36).