For weeks, Republicans in Ohio have been watching with worry that the state’s vital 18 electoral votes were trending away from Mitt Romney. The anxiety has been similar in Florida, where Republicans are concerned that President Obama is gaining the upper hand in the fight for the state’s 29 electoral votes…Those fears are affirmed in the findings of the latest Quinnipiac University/New York Times/CBS News polls of likely voters in both states, which show that Mr. Obama has widened his lead over Mr. Romney and is outperforming him on nearly every major campaign issue, even though about half said they were disappointed in Mr. Obama’s presidency.
Today’s Quinnipiac/NYT/CBS poll has Barack Obama up by fully ten points on Mitt Romney in Ohio, 53-43%, and leading in Florida by 53-44%. Yesterday, a Washington Post poll found Obama ahead in both states but by smaller margins.
Needless to say, if Romney continues to lose ground in these large states, his path to victory becomes much more difficult–and other swing states like Colorado, where Romney is down in the polls but by a consistently smaller margin, become absolute must-win situations.
Full story: New Polls Say Obama Pulling Away In Ohio, Florida
One option for Romney if he loses Ohio is to capture Colorado and Nevada. Colorado is still close.
no Republican has made it to the WH without winning Ohio.
Colorado and Nevada together can’t come close to the electoral votes being lost in Ohio.
Virginia seems to be going to Obama, to.
I also heard from James Carville (who yes, I love but understand is prone to exaggeration) that whomever takes Pennsylvania takes the prize.
He claims Pennsylvania is not a ” swing state ” in his definition because a swing state is one that is up for grabs that may help you win but if you lose it you will not necessarily lose the election. He says Pennsylvania is a must win for either Obama or Romney.
Not sure if I agree or not. And last I checked Obama was way up in Penn. Does that mean Obama wins the election ?
I am not sure I agree with Carville there.
Todd says if Romney loses Ohio, picks up Colorado and Nevada, then Virginia will be the decider.
Romney still loses, even in that scenario.
If Romney picks up Colorado, Nevada and Virginia, but loses Ohio, he loses the Electoral College 275-263.
(since they weren’t mentioned in the article nor do they seem to be in anyone’s calculation based on a conversation of the importance of CO/NV/OH/VA, these numbers deduce a victory for Obama in Iowa & New Hampshire and a Romney victory in Florida).
For Romney to win after losing Ohio, he needs to four of five of Nevada/Colorado/New Mexico/Iowa/New Hampshire (and winning four of those but losing Colorado leads to a 269-269 tie)
And, of course, Obama winning Florida makes all of it moot.
…and he still loses 271-267 without Ohio.
I just heard Colorado,
But if he loses Florida too, as now seems likely, it’s going to be a wipeout in the electoral college. I think Colorado can be brought home for Obama, but Ohio is still the holy grail.
Read Nate Silver’s post today. There are still paths to victory as long as he wins Florida and Virginia. It’s just really, really hard. But not impossible. And Ohio is not the holy grail. Clearly, it’s a combination of both Ohio and Florida/Virginia.
That’s not to say that Ohio isn’t important, and that his path isn’t very difficult, but clearly it’s not the election.
As Nate said today, the telling thing will be to see if Romney does heavy ad buys in Iowa and Nevada.
That path to victory without Ohio has never, ever, in the 166-year history of the Republican Party ever propelled a Republican into the White House. And it’s just silly to think that
Rombot could lose Ohio and somehow piece it together in the cheap seat states. Of the nine swing states, the only one he has a slim lead in at the moment is North Carolina.
It is mathematically possible. But it ain’t gonna happen.
I wonder if the Fat Lady knows any of my Billie Holiday favorites
That is all.
Nate Silver for me is the ubermeister of polling interpretation. Besides looking at every poll done, he understands methodology and statistics.
Anyway, Obama’s likelihood of winning the WH increases almost daily. He’s almost back where he was, post convention, having lost a few points later.
Mr. Silver puts the senate at 52+ seats for the Dems. That’s a flip from mid-August when he put the Pubs at 51.
He puts Obama at 312 electoral votes.
but no Tancredo to bail them out and make it look respectable.
What could happen that would lead to a Romney victory? Forget about the swing states for a minute, how does Romney reverse the trends? There do not seem to be many alternatives. Kick butt in the debates? Romney is going to have to swing for the fences, and that seems more likely to result in a strike out than a home run. An international crisis? More likely to help Obama than Romney as we rally around our leader. Domestic economic bad news? This seems the most likely. But the flip side of the slow recovery is that the economy is fairly stable. It is easy to imagine things not getting better (or even slightly worse), but it is hard to imagine them getting significantly worse is the next month and a half.
Like cornering Obama into finally admitting that he is a secret jihadi agent tutored by Bill Ayers and mentored by Rev. Wright.
Barring something like that, I agree that its getting harder and harder to see how Team Romney turns it around.
He is a KGB plant.
The real BHO was killed and replaced by a KGB sleeper agent.
http://www.thecomingattack.com…
Thank you sir.
I thought it was just good satire. Then I read the comments. Holy cow! There really ARE crazy, detached from reality folks out there. Lots of talk about fully automatic guns, “not giving up,” all caps comments, and just plain non sequiturs.
I made the mistake of scrolling down to the comments section, too. Yikes.
to be talking revolution again.
When Republicans win it is a mandate.
When they lose it is time to secede.
Go figure.
America has elected black men to the presidency.
I sat down at this little sidewalk cafe and ordered a red.
An old gentleman sat down, and after a few because quite agitated.
“Oui! Oui, it iz zee truth,” he said. ”What you Americans do not know is zis thing is already a …what do you say? fait accompli?”
I tried to ignore him, searching desperately for some ketchup to put on my
FrenchFreedom Friespom frits.“Pardon?” I finally said, not able to ignore his beady little Gallic eyes.
“It is done. We have embedded ‘Mittens’ in your culture. First he will save the Olympics! Then he will … be very badly beaten by this other fella.”
Weird, huh? Will it come true?
a cultivated conspirator like yourself would put ketchup on French Fries!
‘fry sauce’ on all Freedom Fries.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F…
This will be his second Executive action–after he repeals all of, but not all of,
RomneyObamacareand, yeah, Ketshup too, though not as much as mustard. Alas, I can very seldom indulge the potato because of my diabetes.
thirty-two and a half years ago, the French put mayonnaise on their pommes frites.
Or sauce Americaine, which was a nauseating mixture of ketchup and mayonnaise.
its called ‘fry sauce’ and its a Mormon delicacy.
Obama is good at responding well in a crisis. The aftermath may show poor decisions or faulty assumptions but his demeanor is likely to rally support in any sort of domestic or international crisis.
Romney needed a meltdown before August. If Israel goes boom or the EU economies start taking down international markets, second-guessing by the Republicans isn’t going to be seen favorably before the crisis cools, well after ballots are cast.
I agree with your analysis. A meltdown in Europe before the election seems the most plausible event that might help Romney.
Otherwise, voter suppression is the other path to a Romney victory. For example, the 10 page ballots in FL coupled with cutting in half the number of early voting days could seriously restrict FL voting. Also, Gessler’s decision not to send permanent mail ballots to those who didn’t vote in the 2010 election will also suppress the CO vote.
that it is predictable they will have 2 more in next months. Americans already think Europe is down the tubes anyway, at least the Rmoney voters, the voters who don’t read
You’re just trying to make D’s overconfident. It’s closer than you say.
or
You’re just echoing the liberal/msm/tank . R’s are in it to win it- and even the Missouri senate seat is going R. Soyndra!
http://www.scribd.com/doc/1068…
Obama only 45-44% over Romney in Ohio. Don’t pop the cork yet!
Don’t bother answering. We know your cherry-picking ways well, grasshopper.
Those guys were actually from Florida…
So, there.
But I agree that songs about Alabama are the best songs about Florida.
(Though I really hate that part of Texas.)
you never heard of Eric Clapton??
Connection?
Cause if you’re going where I think I am …this is the best song about Florida…
PS
Q: When was the last time a back presidential candiadte won Florida?
A: 2008
who came to early, and you whippersnappers who came too late, . . . there’s Molly Hatchet. Damn fine band out of Jacksonville, and although this isn’t one of their very best it’s definitely a Florida song.
Outlaws band out of Tampa, in the great dangle state. An all time classic:
70′s Rock rocks — turn up the phonograph and don’t bogart that joint!!
no good songs about Florida, and then just posted one . . . here’s mine:
From 461 Ocean Boulevard, in Golden Beach btw:
. . . to the mainline, baby!
finally turned me against Viet Nam war. I was 19 and raised to believe what our govt told us. I was in the Navy at the time.
I resolved that I would always remember at least one name-Allison Krause.
Every May 4 I tell the story to people too young to remember. Often they do not believe me
Jeff Miler.
but I was in college at the time and it was a galvanizing, visceral experience.
I was already opposed to the war but that incident made it personal. The whole betrayal of the war, realizing that the politicians were just lying to us to further personal agendas, permanently radicalized me.
Too late at night to have this conversation.
Lying to us – and getting a lot of good people maimed and killed in the process.
My dad’s family is from Kent.
Gravis is a partisan Republican polling outfit whose polls have been laughed at by everyone other than conservative conspiracy theorists.
They’re new this season, but they’ve run enough polls to get a solid comparison vs. other polling outfits. They’ve been consistently about 6-10 points spread in favor of Republicans vs. the polling average.
Gravis has finally posted a poll that isn’t skewed far toward the Romney end of the scale – I think.
Colorado (Gravis — R): Obama 50, Romney 46