So....is anyone else rather obsessed with 270towin.com? I find myself fiddling around with the various scenarios of the electoral college several times a day. Sometimes I give Barack a landslide, flipping North Carolina and Montana and Indiana and even Georgia and turning them blue.
But most of the time, I play a rather depressing game. I call it, What If He Loses Ohio? The most recent Ohio polls show it as basically a toss-up. Of course, this was before Hillary dropped out. The Unity bounce which we have seen have a huge effect on national polls will undoubtedly be felt in individual states as well.
That said, Ohio includes large swaths of Appalachia, and large numbers of the Hardworking Americans that have given Barack a lot of trouble. Unlike Pennsylvania, it doesn't have huge cities that can offset his weak spots. I am basically not optimistic.
BUT Barack can win the Electoral College without Ohio with very little difficulty. In fact, there are at least two completely realistic ways. They are
- Kerry States + Iowa, New Mexico and Colorado
- Kerry States + Iowa and Virginia
Iowa is basically a safe Obama state, so in the case of Option 2, he just needs to choose Warner as his VP and then plant himself in Virginia for a few months. In option A, (as pictured in the map above) he is already ahead in both New Mexico and Colorado. He merely needs to maintain that lead and shore up his numbers in the Kerry states.
The only Kerry states currently in danger are Michigan and New Hampshire where Mccain currently has a slim lead, and Pennsylvania where Obama IS ahead but which is likely to be pursued aggressively by Mccain. Wisconsin is also slightly competitive for Mccain.
In the case of New Hampshire, the most recent Rasmussen poll actually had Obama up by 5. Other polls show Mccain ahead but his lead has been deteriorating for months. Mccain is simply not the same moderate guy that he was in 2000 and I think folks are slowly starting to realize it. I am very confident that Obama will win it.
Mccain also has a slim lead in Michigan, but obviously, there's a reason for that. Obama didn't campaign there and has never run any advertising there. He has made like 3 or 4 trips to Michigan in the last month so he's working hard to remedy it. I have no doubt Michigan will be blue.
So I suspect that Obama will divide his time between the following states:
Florida - He won't win here, BUT it's too huge a state to ignore and he never campaigned or ran advertising here so he can improve his numbers significantly.
Michigan
Pennsylvania
Virginia
New Mexico
Missouri - A very, very winnable state, actually.
Colorado
Iowa
Wisconsin
Ohio - Which he doesn't need but can't ignore
New Hampshire
Nevada - A very winnable state
I have TOTAL faith in the 50-state strategy (or at least the expanded map strategy) and I have no doubt he will make some visits to North Carolina, Georgia and maybe Indiana where he is surprisingly strong. But the road to the White House is a relatively simple one.
- Kerry States + Iowa, New Mexico and Colorado
- Kerry States + Iowa and Virginia