The formula for electing Mitt Romney to the presidency isn’t all that complicated. He must hold all the states John McCain won in 2008, take back normally Republican states that went to President Obama such as Virginia, North Carolina, Florida and Indiana and win at least one of the major swing states such as Ohio or Pennsylvania. That sounds easy in theory but as the latest round of polling — which, thanks to the Electoral College, are the numbers we should be watching more closely than the national tracking polls —in individual states shows, Romney’s path is far from clear.
While the certain Republican nominee should be encouraged by surveys of voters in Florida and Ohio, the numbers from Virginia and to a lesser extent in Pennsylvania are daunting. As much as the national popular vote looks to be almost a dead heat between Romney and Obama right now, the Democrat’s Electoral College advantage is clear. Even more to the point, unless Romney finds a way to come from behind in Virginia and North Carolina, putting Florida and North Carolina back in the red column won’t matter.
The new Washington Post poll of voter sentiment in Virginia confirms what a Public Policy Polling survey of the state showed earlier this week: the president has a substantial lead in a state that Romney must have if he is going to win. The Post poll shows Obama ahead by 51-44 percent among registered voters. PPP gave him a similar 51-43 edge. A Survey USA poll showed Obama leading by a smaller 47-43 percent margin in North Carolina. Less depressing for the GOP are Quinnipiac University polls that show Romney ahead 44-43 percent in Florida and almost even in Ohio with Obama leading there by 44-42 percent. Quinnipiac also has Obama comfortably ahead in Pennsylvania by 47-39 percent.
The Real Clear Politics Electoral College map illustrates Romney’s problem. RCP shows the president ahead in states totaling 253 electoral votes with states that are either likely or leaning to Romney giving the GOP standard-bearer only 170 votes. That means Romney must win 100 of the 115 votes in the tossup states to get to the magic number of 270 that guarantees victory.
Given the tight national polls and general dissatisfaction with the president’s job performance, that is far from unlikely, let alone impossible. But it gives Romney very little margin for error. He must, more or less, run the table in swing states. This means that although the GOP has good reason to believe it can win in both Florida and Ohio, it can’t afford to lose either Virginia or North Carolina without scoring a far more unlikely upset in Democrat-leaning Pennsylvania or Michigan.
Democrats believe the changing demographics in Virginia and North Carolina, as both have become more urban, dictates that their recent history as reliable Republican states is over. But those factors will not save Obama if the economy continues to lag on his watch. Today’s figures that show disappointing job growth and a still high unemployment rate make it clear the Democrats are quite capable of blowing this election and losing all the swing states. If Romney is to overcome his current Electoral College deficit, he must, as he did this week, concentrate on campaigning in states like Virginia and stick to his message about the economy. Obama’s current advantage there is daunting, but with six months to go and little reason to believe the economy will improve over the summer, there is plenty of hope left for the Republican.
There is something amiss with this poll of Virginia voters. First of all, it is about 'registered' voters, not likely voters but the biggest puzzle is the fact that in the northern urban triangle- supposedly moderate, independent, Obama voters country- Romney is actually AHEAD 48 to 46. Where is the President getting his votes from?? George Allen is ahead of TIm Kaine and the rest of the state is solidly Republican. . I suspect that this vote is weighed towards Democrats- it is implausible that Obama is so far ahead in a state that has been Republican forever- and is behind or tied in true swing states like Ohio and Florida.
Sigh — Jonathan, these are all registered voter polls with samples heavily weighted towards the Dems, +8 in OH and +7 in PA. They are using 2008 turnout models in some cases. Rasmussen likely voter surveys showed GOP national advantage of +2 just a few days ago! All of this means the polls you cite skew heavily to Obama. Garbage in, garbage out.
I would keep my eye on national polls, nonetheless. If Romney wins by 53/47, which is possible, he will win Virginia, Ohio, Florida, etc., no sweat. If he wins nationally by 51/49, he will still win the key swing states and pass 270 (show me a scenario in which Romney beats Obama by two points and still falls short of 270, and I'll show you a Democrat pipe dream). If it's essentially 50/50, as in 2000, the "map" advantage to the Dems may kick in, but then again, W did win in 2000 and 2004. n nTaking into account the usual gap between RV and LV polls and the virtually certain advantage to the challenger among undecideds (and not even addressing any skewed weighting in polls by WaPo or PPP) and I think you would see a statistical tie in both Virginia and Pennsylvania. Six months out, that's bad news for Obama.
We have no Speaker for the republican party. As we watched every opportunity for Speaker Boehner to refute what Pres Obama has said,there was silence. We wish we had a republican Pelosi who would have had Eric Holder susupended if not fired by now.
Talk is Boehner didn’t want any of the 24 women republicans on stage with him, not enough press conferences and in fact disappeared and did not fight for us.
Obama has now declared war on seniors but no press conference out there. He threatened the Supreme Court that if they overturn Obamacare..he then would put all Medicare seniors into Medicaid.
This is to pay for the 17,000 IRS people being hired now to investigate who is doing what and was told by my Cong office they have to get ready now..thus the increase of workers bringing down the unemployed.
Mitt Romney will probably capture Virginia's electoral votes. His biggest challenge is to persuade the socially liberal yuppies who normally vote Democrat since the Clinton years. These economically illiterate people were conned into believing the Democratic Party has its act together regarding economic matters.
I'm thinking what you're missing here is the fact that this is a WaPo story, a paper which really WANTS it to be true that Obama has the inside track to re-election. It is telling that a couple of months ago, the tone was "Economy getting better, Obama certain to win." Now, it's "Economy looking iffy, but it will still be hard for Obama to lose." The mere fact that an Obama/Dem mouthpiece like WaPo is saying this probably means their guy is in deep trouble.
How anyone could take the Washington Post "Poll" seriously is incredible since they are part of the Obama campaign. Charlie Cook who is seems to have the best record of all prognosticators has Romney with 210 electoral votes and needs to win Florida, Virginia, and Ohio to get to 270. The Real Clear Politics scorecard of electoral votes is ridiculously inaccurate since it includes all of polls such as the NY Times and Wash Compost which are clearly part of the Obama campaign machine . Cook has North Carolina as leaning to Romney. He doesn't need to "run the table of the swing states" . Jonathan Tobin shows he is a very incompetent prognosticator since Cook, Sabato , and Rothenberg : probably the 3 top prognosticators have the electoral vote count as of much closer than Real Clear Politics. Also Jay Cost of the Weekly Standard who in my opinion understands forecasting elections believes the 10% who are true swing voters will break towards Romney once they focus on the campaign. Today's Gallup and Rasmussen have Romney +1. Unless the fascist Obama supporters steal the election, Romney will win because Obama media shills will not be able to hide the terrible state of the economy despite the stupidity of a large percentage of voters.