It's going to be close and GOTV is going to matter A LOT.
But, Obama has a few very clear and viable paths to victory and Romney has just one path -- he must win Ohio, a state Obama has maintained a stubborn 2-3 point advantage even as it has closed up a bit.
More below the fold:
Obama has strong leads in 18 states plus the District of Columbia that give him at least 237 Electoral College votes. There is 0% chance he drops below that.
I did not include Nevada, Iowa, or Wisconsin in that total. But, since the beginning of the election, Obama has maintained steady and consistent leads in the Pollster.com's polling aggregate in these three states of between 2 and 5 points.
In each of these three states, Obama saw a post-Convention bounce that spiked the margins close to double digits. But, after the first debate, Obama's lead in each state has settled back into roughly the pre-Convention margin. And, even more encouraging, in all three states Obama's lead is starting ever so slightly to tick up again.
Given the persistence of the roughly 3-point margins in these states and the trends that are settling in, I don't see how Romney steals any of them from Obama's column. That gives Obama 22 more EC votes that are all but locked in for a total of 259.
Of the remaining states, here are the ones in which Obama has never been behind (ranked by how close they currently are based on Pollster.com's polling aggregates):
Ohio, 18 EC votes (Obama currently ahead by 2.2% in aggregate)
New Hampshire, 4 EC votes (Obama currently ahead by 1.6% in aggregate)
Colorado, 9 EC votes (Obama currently ahead by 0.8% in aggregate)
Virginia, 13 EC votes (Obama currently ahead by 0.6% in aggregate)
These are very close states, but Obama has never been behind in any of them and in all of them the margins are stable or ever so slightly increasing over the last week.
If the election were held today, based on where things are right now and based on everything I've seen over the last few weeks and throughout this campaign, I think Obama wins all four giving him 303 Electoral College votes. If I were a betting man, that's where I think things will end up.
The only other two states in the mix are Florida, where Romney is ahead by about as much in the aggregate polling as Obama is in Colorado, and North Carolina, where Romney is ahead by about as much as Obama is in Ohio.
Romney's biggest aggregate polling lead in Florida was 1% from October 8-12. Since then, it has settled back a bit to a 0.7%-0.8% margin. In NC, Romney's lead spiked to 2.7% from October 9-10. Since then, it has settled back to a 2.3% margin.
Obama is closing very strong here with two great debate performances and with a closing argument and campaign events that are energetic, hopeful, forceful and optimistic. With employment improving, housing improving, consumer confidence improving and all the other environmental factors trending our way (Romney's major gaffe on the Murdoch endorsement, for example), I think it is very possible that Florida narrows down to a 0.1-0.2% race and becomes a coin flip.
The one negative I see here is that I just can't bring myself to give Obama a realistic shot at NC. I know our GOTV efforts there are crushing it, but the angry white vote is coming out, too. The NC victory in 08 was too narrow and I think we end up losing the state by 2-3 points.
But the beautiful thing is all we need to do is win our sure bet states (237 EC votes) + our very nearly sure bet states (22 EC votes) + Ohio and we win. Add NH, CO, and VA as lean Obama just for good measure.
For Romney to win, he has to win FL and NC, but he also has to win the four "swing" states in which he has never led. It's a very steep hill to climb and I just don't see a realistic way that he wins all four of those states.