It’s been a tough few weeks for President Barack Obama.<\/p>\n
Republican challenger Mitt Romney has closed the poll gap in dramatic fashion, going from an injured primary warrior to a serious general election contender faster than anyone anticipated.<\/p>\n
He’s also made fast work of closing the fundraising gap, and with the help from corporations and wealthy donors may actually outspend an incumbent president.\u00a0 Those are huge accomplishments.<\/p>\n
Last time I surveyed the political landscape, Obama’s lead looked daunting.\u00a0 That’s changed.\u00a0 His lead is fragile and as we head into the summer, he faces some big questions about electability.\u00a0 But he retains a small but significant lead.<\/p>\n
Here’s the picture in early June:<\/p>\n
Obama leads substantially in states that would give him 221 electoral college votes, meaning that he needs to find 49 more EC votes to claim a second term.\u00a0 (Romney needs to find 100 EC votes to prevail.)<\/p>\n
At present, the president holds statistically significant (though hardly commanding) leads in plenty of states for him to prevail. And he’s also held steady in a dead-heat tie with Romney nationally for several weeks.<\/p>\n
But Romney has clearly grabbed the momentum going into the summer.\u00a0 I’ll be interested to see if this week’s state-by-state polls show him really stepping forward.<\/p>\n
I know this feels like horse-race stuff, but the polls that come in over the next couple of weeks could really define what kinds of things get talked about during this campaign.<\/p>\n
If Mr. Obama continues to hold onto that slight edge, he may well play it safe, offering a centrist message aimed at holding on to independents in states like Colorado, Iowa, New Hampshire and Virginia.<\/p>\n
But if his lead erodes further, we might see a far more populist Harry Truman style message, as many liberals have been urging.<\/p>\n
So far, meanwhile, Romney is faring just fine as a relatively undefined “non-Obama.”\u00a0 His policies are still vague, but that doesn’t seem to matter to the many voters who see this as a referendum on the president’s first term.<\/p>\n
Romney also still has one more big arrow in his quiver, and that’s his choice of a vice presidential candidate.\u00a0 That choice could give him the extra oomph he needs to break ahead of the president.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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