Romney’s narrow path to victory
Electoral votes by state
So I’ve been playing with the Electoral College map in my usual, obsessive way, and here’s my latest find.
If President Barack Obama wins all the states where he’s currently leading in polls consistently by at least 5 points, he comes very close to a win, capturing 266 out of the 270 Electoral College votes he needs for a second term.
In many of those states — like Michigan, Wisconsin and New Mexico — the President is actually leading by double-digit margins, and commands over 50% support. So clearly, Mr. Obama holds a powerful strategic lead.
Does that mean it’s game over for Mitt Romney? No. As many In Boxers have pointed out, it’s still very early days.
So far, Romney hasn’t shown the kind of talent on the stump that has allowed other campaigners — politicians of the caliber of Reagan and Clinton, say — to recapture the larger narrative.
The lengthy Republican primary is also limiting dangerously the time that he’ll have to pivot from his conservative talking points to a more moderate general-election message.
But even if the campaign dynamic doesn’t change dramatically in tone and momentum, the Republican does still have a path to victory.
Here is what may be the most plausible scenario for how Romney could unseat an incumbent president.
First, of course, he has to hold everything that is currently expected to fall in the “red” column, including states like Arizona and Missouri that some Democrats think might conceivably be put in play.
Republicans have already come very close to losing Virginia, a state that was once purplish or downright red.
Polls show Obama leading in that southern-border state consistently by close to double-digit margins, thanks largely to Democratic support in growing northern suburbs just outside of Washington DC.
One more significant erosion of that caliber on the national map and the game is probably up.
Still, if Team Romney can hold onto the territory that now looks safe, they have a shot. They then have to run the table in these remaining battlegrounds: Colorado, Iowa, Ohio, Florida, North Carolina, and New Hampshire.
That kind of sweep won’t be easy, of course. Romney currently trails (by small and inconsistent margins) in several of those states, including Florida and Ohio. But the door clearly remains open to making an argument to those important voters.
It’s also worth noting that for Romney to recapture New Hampshire would be a nice coup.
His power base within the Republican Party is set solidly in the Northeast, but he’s expected to win almost nothing in that region during the general election.
Even if he wins all those states, Romney would emerge with a scant victory of 272 Electoral College votes. So there is, as they say, zero margin for error.
I think it’s a fact that at this stage of the game, the Republican map — and Mitt Romney’s room to maneuver — is much, much smaller than most pundits have acknowledged.
But a win is a win and during the primary Romney has shown that he’s comfortable eking out a victory on points, rather than a knock-out.
Tags: analysis, election12, politics
Since were in horse race mode, remember Stewball?
“Stewball was a racehorse, and I wish he were mine,he never drank water, he always drank wine”
Kind of reminds me of the Republicans and Romney, although as a Mormon Romney doesn’t drink wine, still he has that image of the anti-common man. The point is, why would you want a racehorse that drank wine? But the top hat wearing Republicans are placing all their bets on ole’ Stewball.
But the Tea Party Republicans are looking for the Tennessee Stud.
“The Tennessee stud was long and lean
The color of the sun and his eyes were green
He had the nerve and he had the blood
And there never was a hoss like the Tennessee stud”
Wait! Isn’t that Al Gore?
Where are you getting your polling data? I live in one of the states you mention, and I’ve seen nothing in the news about any recent poll asking a simple Obama-or-Romney? question. So I’m wondering how current your data are on head-to-head match ups in the swing states. The map on Real Clear Politics (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/2012_elections_electoral_college_map.html), which has been quite useful in past elections, hasn’t changed in weeks.
gromit –
good questions.
my methodology is simple verging on simplistic: i’m using the most recent polling on all states, “giving” obama states where he has consistently led romney by five or more points.
(i can’t give specific numbers on your state, because i don’t know where you are…)
one of my points is that i think that other pundits, including RCP, aren’t copping to the strategic advantages that obama currently holds.
consider the RCP map you cite above.
it shows virginia as a ‘toss-up’ even though the most recent polls show obama leading there by nearly double-digit margins.
even the latest rasmussen polls (which are generally viewed as favoring republican candidates) show obama with a 9 point lead.
in my book, that’s at least a “leans” obama. (the long-term average for obama in virginia is a 5.2-point lead.)
similarly, in ohio obama has led consistently by between 6 and 12 points (with one fox news poll a couple of months ago as an outlier).
that’s not at least a lean?
same with nevada, where obama has led by more than 6 points consistently.
meanwhile, i think it’s also a bit sketchy that RCP describes wisconsin as merely “leaning” toward obama, when the democrat has led there by more than double digit margins consistently.
by my estimation, that’s at least a “likely” obama.
as my original post suggests, this doesn’t mean game-over. romney could pull some of these states back into his column.
and there are still plausible paths to 270 electoral votes for the republican. but his paths are narrower, and steeper, than most people realize.
–brian, ncpr
Anyone who doesn’t drink or have sex doesn’t deserve to be President.
Romney fails the first test.
I do think it is a very narrow path I agree. I also think things change quickly, I mean what did the polls say about Santorum 6 months ago? He was a distant also ran, and that was based on these same sorts of polls.
An incumbent always holds the advantage anyway. To me the big variables are unemployment and gas prices, what those look like late summer and fall will have the largest impact in my opinion. (unless santorum is the nominee than I think Obama wins regardless due to the fact that he is just out of the mainstream on social issues).
time to replace our foolish electoral college with a national popular vote.
Massive numbers of Republicans, most of the women, and most of the Hispanics will vote for Obama…not because he’s the best president ever, but because it could be worse …much worse.
You’ve got that right Scratchy! We pay lip service to one-man one-vote, but we’ve got nothing like it. It’s bad enough that Wyoming, with barely half a million people gets the same number of Senators as California with almost 38 million. Then there’s the fact that in most states Senate district lines have never been redrawn, in many cases badly under-representing urban voters as cities have grown. And finally the winner-take-all electoral college system dramatically under-represents voters in states that are strongly aligned with one party or the other, like New York. I suppose it’s another of those hopeless issues…
I think just removing the winner take all within the electoral college would be a great start. Right now as you said, nobody cares about our three biggest states as they are locked. So if you are a Republican in NY or a Democrat in Texas, you might as well stay home. Because when we look at the county or district voting within states, the country and many states are a lot less blue and a lot less red.
Funny, I’d looked at it the other way ’round– if you are a Democrat in NY or a Republican in Texas, you might as well stay home– because the value of the votes of a strong majority are under-represented also. They’re like gerrymandered districts. If you’re a Republican politician, you want all your Democratic voters packed into 90% Democratic states and all your Republican voters in states with 51% majorities. Anyone know when this was last challenged in court? Is it really untouchable?
I agree with mervel, things change quickly. People today seem to be so gullible and fickle, too. The media can spend 3 days with some sensational news story, pin one of the candidates to it, and people are swayed.
November is a very long way off. The race between Romney and Obama hasn’t even started. Once the Supreme Court overturns Obamacare people will ask, “What did this man accomplish in four years?” If this race is close it will only be due to the media bias!
Romney can win and he can win with independents. The primary is making it hard for him because he has had to take stands that will hurt him in the general election. But he has a record of success he is not extreme on any particular issue, he is pro-business, will not raise taxes all things most people like. I think his biggest problem is that he is just intrinsically boring, he can’t help it it is just who he is, he is wooden. Next to a more charismatic personality such as Obama he will look even more boring.
In the long run the tea party movement I think was a neat expression of organic democracy regardless of what you think of them. It is why they elicited so much reaction from establishment Republicans and all Democrats. In the end they will hurt the Republican Party. We are still a moderately conservative nation and independents are who decides who wins. To the degree that the tea party has made Romney run away from his true successes in his past, such as his successful health care reform in Mass. is the degree they hurt him. Now he can’t claim his successes and nobody really believes he is a hard core conservative, so what does he have left? His idiotic fob to the right by taking a hardline immigration stand puts him out with the Hispanic vote. We will see if he can pivot, his campaign manager had it right though he needs to reset his plan when he wins the nomination.
“In the long run the tea party movement I think was a neat expression of organic democracy regardless of what you think of them. It is why they elicited so much reaction from establishment Republicans and all Democrats.”
I notice that the same things we see in the US is happening sans Tea party, did you see their new budget, what is going on there?
Sorry, I should clarify. What is going on with the 2012 budget in Canada? Looks like tea party special?
Winning the Republican nomination is like winning the door prize at the next election. President Obama will shake his hand and say “Thanks for coming out…don’t let the door hit you in the a##”. Perhaps we will generate some momentum and move forward through the obstacles thrown up by the Republicans. Progress is what we need here.
Looks like Romney might have a “women problem” in some important swing states. http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/04/gender-gap-appears-in-senate-races.php?ref=fpb
And the Romney “women problem” here from USA Today also. http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/story/2012-04-01/swing-states-poll/53930684/1
Never really though of president Obama as “charismatic”. He is a good orator.
tootightmike, wouldn’t you say that in order for progress there has to be some semblance of unity? When you say that the Republicans have thrown up obstacles, (and I know the Republicans would say the same about the Democrats,) it continues to promote the division.
I think the discussion should be how can both parties, both Liberals and Conservatives, who both claim to love their country, work together.
I realize it sounds euphoric but shouldn’t unity be the goal?
I am tired of drama. We should spend less time with the one-liners and more time with real solutions.
PNElba, the women thing is a problem for Mitt. It was a colossal blunder for the GOP to turn a “religious” thing into a “contraceptive” thing. Big mistake.
It was, I mean yes before it was about religious liberty, but when it became about contraception itself, well you are doomed. I do think it was well played by the left though who had a big part in making it about contraception and not about religious liberty.
But Romney has not even started talking about the fiscal train wreck that Obama has inflicted on this country and our future, this is probably his best strategy.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/41491193/
excuse me? why, i can remember all the way back to 2007 when the worst recession since the great depression began under some other guy’s watch.
Kind of, but the real calamity is the response, which is more debt than any other American President in history, we can’t pay it off. The guy has spent more than on WWII and for what? Certainly not in helping those who are poor, no he has given it all away to whatever political favor of the day would help him, certainly no different than many Republicans would do, I agree, but still it is a train wreck. The economy goes up and down but the debt is controlled, and as our current head of the Federal Reserve points out we are close to disaster. There is NO plans on this guys plate to cut the deficit.
i don’t know what to say, mervel, i think this is almost all wrong! sure a lot of debt has been run up under obama, but most of that has been completely unavoidable given the economic crisis, owing to the resulting combination of sharply diminished tax revenue and (automatic) increased safety net spending. and thank god for that safety net spending and the stimulus — that’s the kind of stuff that keeps a recession from turning into a depression, which would probably lead to an even worse budgetary situation than we’re experiencing. indeed turning to austerity right now would very likely be a big mistake!
what’s more, the deficit just isn’t a problem right now. it is a problem in the medium term, but that’s years away, and at any rate it’s going to be almost all about health care costs by then. which, oh by way, obama happens to have done something kind of major to address: the affordable care act is projected to have a serious positive impact on the budget.
When liberals complained about the amount of debt that was being run up by Reagan, Bush1 and Bush2 where were all the fiscal conservatives in Congress?
When liberals complained that Alan Greenspan was a fool where were all the fiscal conservatives in Congress?
When Obama tries to cut subsidies to oil companies that are making huge profits while gas is $4/gallon where are all the fiscal conservatives in Congress?
I was among the first to criticize Obama for being too chummy with Wall Street and big corporations but let’s be fair, Obama did not create the financial crisis and what he has done has kept things from being worse than they have been. He has also set the country on a better path for the future by spending on infrastructure, lowering health care costs, ending the war in Iraq and starting the withdrawal from Afghanistan. He has passed legislation to improve fuel efficiency in autos and trucks which was stifled under repeated Republican administrations – to the detriment of the American auto industry. He has opened leases for oil drilling. The list goes on and on all while the Republicans have tried to cut taxes on the Super Duper Wealthy who have grown RICHER while everyone else has gotten poorer in the last few years.
“Obama did not create the financial crisis and what he has done has kept things from being worse than they have been.”
This baffles me. Some folks have been telling us (at nausea um) about how the GOP is blocking just about everything that the administration would like to do to improve the economic situation.
But then when things improve now he has DONE many things to alleviate a disaster? Which is it?
The more likely answer here is that the GOP’s block of many crazy things like tax increases during a recession have kept money in the economy and slowly helped drag us out of the mire. At the same time they have tried to reign in the deficit spending that works against a recovery. That has been a difficult task given this administrations spending habits but I suppose it could have been even worse.
no no no! deficit spending helps the recovery. austerity would hurt the recovery. the evidence is all around. to the extent that republicans have reigned in obama, they have acted to make things worse, not better.
The parties are ruining the country. The thirst for power is playing out right before our eyes.
An excerpt from a sermon given at the anniversary election in Hartford before the Connecticut General Assembly, May 1803:
But when men enlist themselves in parties and range themselves under particular leaders, they too often lose sight of the public good and yield themselves up implicitly to their directions, whom like a band of dragoons they follow wherever they lead. They consider not the truth, the reasonableness, or the justice of the cause, but what will promote the views and interests of the party to which they attach themselves.
This casts a mist before their eyes and sanctifies every mean, however base and iniquitous, that will contribute to the particular designs of the party. Hence slander, misrepresentation, the grossest falsehoods and even violence when the end cannot be obtained without it, are the common resort of men actuated by this spirit. When it rises to any considerable height, it engenders the most virulent factions and deadly animosities in neighborhoods, societies and states, which are often perpetuated from generation to generation and sometimes work the overthrow and ruin of the community or state where they prevail.
It was this spirit of party, which hastened the downfall of ancient Rome, once the wonder and mistress of the world. The powerful parties of Caesar and Pompey kept the state a long time in convulsions, till the victory of Caesar over Pompey gave it a master, and instead of a government managed by freemen, subjected the property, the liberty, and lives of the citizens of Rome, to the will of a tyrant. And Josephus, the Jewish historian, informs us, that to the party factions and intestine divisions that rent and convulsed the Jews among themselves, their destruction as more owing, than to the conquering arms of the Romans.
http://www.wallbuilders.com/libissuesarticles.asp?id=4133
Federal spending has not dramatically increased uder Obama. In relation to GDP, yes. But that is because we have been in a bad recession and GDP is lower.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/17/budget-madness/
None of the Republican candidates would reduce the deficit more than Obama. And Ryan’s budget is simply a joke – more tax cuts for the wealthy and huge cuts to social programs which he fails to identify a single one.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/29/four-phonies-update/
as a follow-up to mervel, have a look at this chart from last summer showing the effects of policy changes under bush and obama, respectively, on the federal debt. it’s not even close. if you want to get mad about the deficit,* then get mad at bush and the republicans, not obama.
*which is not to say that you should! the weak economy is a much bigger problem than the deficit right now. if anything, what we need is more stimulus.
and to echo myown’s first point, here’s another krugman post which makes the point even more starkly (click for a nice chart). the key quote:
I do believe that none of the Republicans have the ability to cut the deficit (with the exception of Ron Paul), the problem is we are not making any progress toward addressing the long term problem, I mean not even close.
So now we don’t even pay social security, we are RUINING that program. This is a successful government program, is anyone even considering the impact of the now permanent reduction in our payroll taxes that go to social security? Who is going to raise that tax? Obama? Who is going to stand up against the biggest health care rip-off in the world? Obama? The US pays twice as much as other countries to buy the same meds, for one reason, the drug companies pay these guys. Health care “reform” that lets them continue to rip us off, as the obama plan does is simply crony capitalism, nothing more nothing less.
first, this is wrong. i mean, how many times does it have to be said, the affordable care act is a major step towards getting the long term deficit under control. it’s by no means sufficient, and there are lots of ways you and i could wish it was awesomer, but it still helps quite a bit!
second, who cares? the long term problem is not something that needs to be solved right now. we have much, much bigger fish to fry. here’s a chart of the interest rate for 10-year treasuries going back to 1881. we’re basically at a historic low right now. which means that demand from the bond market for government debt is extremely high. which means that we’re a long, long way away from having to worry about the size of the debt.
if the payroll tax holiday is indeed temporary (as advertised), then this is nothing to worry about. but if no one has the political will to eventually reinstate the tax, then you’re right, this is really terrible.
the first-best policy would be to enact economic stimulus via more direct federal spending. but the gop won’t have any of that, so a payroll tax holiday is all obama is left with. it remains good policy, by the way, at least as long as the economy remains depressed. we still need stimulus!
perfectly good point! if congress had presented obama with a bill that allowed the government to negotiate for lower prescription drug prices, then i’m sure he would have eagerly signed it. but that’s not the bill we got. too many republicans and conservative democrats were opposed. however i absolutely think that this reform will eventually happen, and it’ll be championed by progressives and opposed by conservatives.
Here’s the problem. People like hermit thrush are dealing with reality based decision making. People who are disagreeing with hermit thrush are listening to the commentary from Backwards World.
knuck, not really.
I think that you and HT might both argue that we have done very little to try to “stimulate” the economy. Right?
We have extended the Bush era tax cuts and kept the payroll tax low. We have kept federal income tax rates at all time lows yet we appear to be slowly recovering.
What? How could this be? Knuck, that is not the “Backwards World” as you call it. It is reality.
Not at all, Paul.
Obama pushed his stimulus,
Though it should have been more vigorous.
When the government
Saw unemployment
Was a disaster!
Obama pushed relief through faster.
Republicans fought,
But we know they’ve been bought
By the one percent set
Who subjected homeowners and students to lifetimes of debt
And want them to bear
Illness without health care.
I could go on rappin’
But it ain’t gonna happen
To change your mind
Cause you’re just gonna find
A way to nit and to pick
Instead of to stick
To the real universe
But my verse is terse
And your verse is worse.
smack down
nope. i would by no means say we’ve done “very little.” we just haven’t done enough. based on the size of the hole in the economy, obama’s initial stimulus package should have been something like $1.5-1.8 trillion, but we only ended up with $800 billion. and it’s telling, paul, that the stimulative measures you mention are all in the form of tax relief; given the gop’s ideological predilections, these are the easiest forms of stimulus to actually pass, but they’re also generally speaking the least effective. we get stuck with second-best policies because conservatives won’t let us have first-best policies. we’ve only had a middling amount of stimulus, and now we have a middling recovery.
I like it!
Look it doesn’t have anything to do with what I think. The facts are what they are. You talk about the inequality and the things that have not been done yet we are slowly recovering? How can this be?
If all the folks in Washington lived in the real world that you describe there would be no problems. We argue about the debt and at the same time Washington sends social security checks by the millions to some of those 1%ers you describe that don’t need it. But would you support “means testing” for SS? I doubt it. But that is a solution rooted in reality. We have a “retirement” age that matches the demographics of the 1920s. But would you support raising the “retirement” age to a reasonable 2012 level (say 67 like they are doing in Canada)? I doubt it. You can’t get anymore “real universe” than that.
“we get stuck with second-best policies because conservatives won’t let us have first-best policies.”
Our system is all about compromise. Sometime second best is the best you can hope for.
George Bush’s bank and auto bailouts probably did have some positive effect. I don’t think that the current president’s policies have had any effect beyond the tax relief measures you describe.
Again these are just the facts.
Paul, as I imagine you know very well, the reason that progressives oppose means testing SS payments is that the minute you do, we’ll hear cries of robbing the rich to pay the poor (after all, we all pay into it), and we’ll reduce the pool of voters interested in keeping Social Security strong.
And while a 67 year old retirement age may work well for desk workers, there are jobs out there where you’re lucky to make it to 65– manual labor jobs, like coal mining, for instance.
“I don’t think that the current president’s policies have had any effect beyond the tax relief measures you describe.
Again these are just the facts.”
So sayeth Paul. When did you become the chief fact enumerator?
see the last sentence of my previous comment.
or if you want a little more elaborate answer: i think that the bush/obama stimulus measures did enough to stabilize our economy when it was in free fall. there’s a good chance they staved off a depression. but they weren’t big enough to spark a robust recovery. i don’t see why this is complicated.
walker’s points on ss are right on. raising the retirement age is a particularly odious “solution,” as it hits poorer people much harder. but i would also note that you forgot one: lifting the cap on income subject to the payroll tax. my recollection is that that would almost single-handedly solve the ss funding problem.
now for the real howler:
really? seriously? bush’s auto bailout was helpful (with which i agree!), but the subsequent structured bankruptcy of gm and chrysler under obama — the likely alternative to which was liquidation — hasn’t “had any effect”? riiiiiiiiiggghht.
i think you should lay off the kool-aid, paul.
Since you seem so amenable to making some common sense reform Paul, why don’t we agree to raise the capital gains rate to 28% that Reagan thought was fair and end the Bush tax cuts. Those two small measures would go a long way to help eliminate the deficits while at the same time providing the ability to pay for the social safety net programs we need.
Stimulus by definition is not permanent. Ok we are going on 8 years in, how long are we planning on “stimulus”?
Read what Bernanke had to say on the topic, we indeed are on the edge of a worse disaster than the one we went through already. Bernanke is not Rush nor is he Fox news.
Obama simply has not been that effective with what he has chosen to do on the economic front his stimulus was largely a handout to the states, it didn’t DO anything. He had this great opportunity to really invest in this countries infrastructure, where is the money now? We spent more on the stimulus than we did not the Marshal plan or the WPA . I mean I can go and find a WPA building still standing and it is usually a good looking building, what will our children see in 70 years from what was built by this spending? The affordable care act is not affordable and in general is simply a handout to the Health care industry. Even if it is legal it is won’t happen because our government can’t afford to pay the current prices the health care industry charges. Which is the reason that they cynically put the actual guts of the bill after the election. I WANT universal health care, but this bill is worse than the current plan because it takes our tax dollars and funds the current corporate system. Its like if we passed an affordable energy plan to pay everyone’s gas bills, and the plan was simply to give EXON and Haliburton the money.
Mervel get ahold of yourself. You are talking nonsense. “we are going on 8 years in” ? 8 years in from what? Are we talking about Obama? cause he’s only been President for about 3 years.
And comparing the dollar figures from 70 years ago to today is just ludicrous.
What can our children see in 70 years that was built by the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act? Go to Whitehall and look at the bridges that were built to allow taller trains to pass under en route from NYC to Montreal thereby improving efficiency on the whole line.
The Affordable Care Act is being touted by experts as integral to saving billions in health care costs. And if you want to blame Obama for not getting you Universal health care then you better be prepared to blame Boehner even more. The Republicans could have told Obama they would reject any bill that didn’t provide health care to everyone and it would have happened- but no, they didn’t want any change to the healthcare system.
And you are seriously going to talk about giving money to to EXXON in the same week that Obama tried to cut billions in freebies to Big Oil but the Republicans insisted that we give them those $Billions$?
You have got to be kidding.
And speaking of Romney, here’s a Romney worthy business story:
The Corporate Masters of the Post Star gave 2 top executives $250,000 dollars each in bonuses and now they have fired something like one third of their news staff at the PS. Once again the people who do the real work get fired, the customers get less for their money and the executives get a bonus.