Say what you like about Karl Rove, but he understands the numbers and the math behind winning the electoral college. So it must be somewhat disconcerting for him and other Republicans looking at the current state polling and not come to the conclusion that Mitt Romney's task is somewhat daunting.
Rove arrives at "his" maps as the rest of us do, simply taking the aggregate public polling and coloring the map as is, without selectively cherry-picking which pollsters to use.
Here is his current map, released a couple of days ago:
You'll notice right away Rove, or more accurately, current polling gives Barack Obama 280 electoral votes even before the toss-up states are considered. Also noteworthy is that there are only 6 of those states, and nothing west of the Mississippi except Iowa.
Karl being Karl he has to spin this in some way his republican audience will find somewhat hopeful, so he comes up with this:
This is the lowest number of "safe" EC votes for Obama and the highest number for Romney since this map was first released in April. There are nine states (101 EC votes) that "lean Obama" as Colorado, Michigan, and Ohio moved to "lean Obama" status, five states (71 EC votes) that "lean Romney," and six states (74 EC votes) that are "toss-ups." However, it is important to remember that there are several reliable Republican states - South Carolina, Texas, South Dakota, Kentucky, and Tennessee - still labeled "toss-up" or "lean" due to lack of polling. If these states are included in Romney's total, which they inevitably will be, he actually beats Obama in the number of "safe" EC votes, 180 to 179.
Here is what Rove's maps have looked like since last April: