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New states, new voters

Team Obama is doing its best to turn Arizona, which the President lost by 8% in 2008, into a battleground state in 2012.

Team Obama is doing its best to turn Arizona, which the President lost by 8% in 2008, into a battleground state in 2012. One of the keys to doing that may be the campaign's ability to leverage Arizona's 2010 immigration law, S.B. 1070, and use it to galvanize Latino voters. Kelefa Sanneh joined the panel today and we spoke about his article in this week's edition of the New Yorker, "Raging Arizona." He points out there's a lot of opportunity in the state, where Latinos make up a third of the population but just 13% of its registered voters.

In today's segment we didn't get to a comparison Senneh made between the outrage over the controversial immigration law in Arizona and a similar battle waged in California in 1994. Senneh writes: "California voters approved Proposition 187, which denies state services, including education and medical care, to unauthorized immigrants. The law was struck down, but it energized Latino voters, helping to turn California into one of the most reliably blue states in the country. Arizona isn't blue, at least not yet."

Senneh's piece also highlights another barometer for the President's chances: whether Richard Carmona can become the first Democrat in 17 years to win a Senate seat in Arizona. For more on the fight for Arizona, check out the full segment (embedded above).