Tomorrow, America will either reelect Barack Obama or elect Mitt Romney. Although it looks like Obama is headed for a close but comfortable victory, anything on the scale of a Romney victory to an Obama blow-out is possible. Every electoral vote counts even once you hit 270. A blow-out by Obama would deal a crushing blow to the Republican message and could initiate a message shift from within the Republican Party, and a Romney victory with a comfortable margin would be a huge jolt to Democrats.
Either way, the electoral votes have to go somewhere, so we might as well try to predict where they will go. The presidential election is going to come down to ten states: Ohio, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Virginia, Colorado, Michigan, New Hampshire, Iowa, Nevada, and Florida. These states, in my view, split into three categories: likely-Obama, lean-Obama, and lean-Romney.
The likely-Obama states are Pennsylvania, Michigan and Nevada. Nate Silver of the New York Times puts Obama’s chance of winning over 90 percent in all three of those states. TPM’s Polltracker gives Obama an over-four point lead in those states as well. If Obama loses in these states or if it is even within a point or two, Obama might be in trouble.
Particularly look to Pennsylvania as it has been known to be a swing state and will be the first of those three states to finish voting. Before Hurricane Sandy started dominating the news cycle, the political spin machine was in full swing on both sides and the Romney side was doing everything they could to convince the media that Pennsylvania had moved into play. While this notion has been thoroughly rebuffed by polling, it is still good to look to Pennsylvania to get an idea of what’s to come. Obama should have around a healthy 4-point if he is going to get the comfortable victory everyone is predicting he will have.
The lean-Obama states are Ohio, Iowa, New Hampshire and Colorado. These are the four states the election falls on. In order for Romney to win, he has to take all the states he is supposed to take as well as take Ohio and one of the other three lean Obama states. Ohio and New Hampshire would put him at 270, Ohio and Colorado at 275, and Ohio and Iowa at 272.
If you wonder why you hear so much about Ohio in the news, this is why. Romney’s best and basically only chance of winning this election is stealing Ohio and another state from Obama. If Romney wins, it is highly likely that we will be up all night waiting for votes to be counted in Ohio.
Finally, the lean-Romney states are Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida. All three of these were won by Obama in 2008 and Romney has to take all three of them back to have any chance at winning. Florida has a history of being s swing state, but Virginia and North Carolina are new to the territory after they were put in play by Obama in 2008.
The reason I included these states is because I think they could be important if Obama wins them. A decisive victory could have some long-term political effects, as I mentioned earlier. They also show how Obama changed the political landscape in 2008 by taking to historically conservative southern states and making them swing states.
I would say the most likely scenario is Obama winning 303-235 with Obama taking Virginia and everything else going as planned. Polls show Obama with a slight comeback in Virginia since Romney took the lead in early October.
If there is a surprise, I would predict that it would favor Obama. Whatever momentum Romney had left about a week ago was stopped abruptly when Hurricane Sandy hit. Before the Hurricane, Obama was already beginning a climb back to his pre-debate poll numbers. Romney winning Ohio would come as more of a surprise to me than Obama winning North Carolina, Florida or both.
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