The Presidential race is 4 days away and the President has a pretty clear upper hand in his re-election effort, but Mitt Romney has several paths to winning the election.
Here are my assumptions: The outcome of 41 states plus the District of Columbia can be predicted with at least confidence.* President Obama can bank on winning a minimum of 237 Electoral Votes (EV) while Mitt Romney is assured of 191. Romney therefore needs to win 79 EV out of the 110 EV in the nine states that might be carried by either candidate. I think that any path Romney might have to 270 involves him winning North Carolina (15 EV). So for the scenarios below, we'll say that he starts with 206 EV and consider eight states up for grabs, and I would put them into two categories based on their number of electoral votes:
Three Large Swing States: Florida (29 EV), Ohio (18), and Virginia (13),
Five Small Swing States, Wisconsin (10), Colorado (9), Iowa (6), Nevada (6), New Hampshire (4).
The winner of the election will largely be determined by how the Large Swing States go. Keep these scenarios in mind as you watch the results come in on Tuesday.
1. If Romney wins Florida, Ohio and Virginia:
If he wins all 3 of the Large Swing States, he will have 266 EV and will need to win just one Small Swing State.
2. If Romney wins FL and OH but not VA:
He will have 253 votes and can be elected by:
A. Wining WI and CO.
B. Winning WI or CO if he also wins two of the other Small Swing States: (IA, NV, NH).
3. If Romney wins FL and VA but not OH:
He starts with 248 EV and can be elected by:
A. Winning CO and WI plus one other Small Swing States (IA, NV, or NH).
B. Winning WI or CO if he also wins NV and IA.
Note: if he wins CO, IA and NV, then he gets a 269-269 tie, which would mean Romney being elected President and Joe Biden remaining Vice-President under the provisions of the 12th Amendment.
4. If Romney wins OH and VA but not FL:
He starts with 237 and must sweep all five Small Swing States.
5. If Romney wins FL, but loses OH and VA:
He starts with 235 and must win all five Small Swing States.
Winning just OH or VA while losing the other two Large Swing States does not present any way for Romney to get to 270.
As long as Romney wins NC, he has several permutations to get over the line. But every time one of those remaining eight swing states gets colored blue, he loses an "out". If these swing states provide 33 EV for the President, the election is over.
* President Obama could pull an upset in Nebraska's 2nd Congressional district. This is unlikely to occur and very unlikely to determine the winner, although it could avoid the 269-269 tie scenario discussed above in Section 3B.
I'd say that #1 is his only realistic path to victory. I could see him pulling off close wins in FL and VA, and something suspicious happening in Ohio. Then, Colorado seems close enough, and has the rabid rightwing base around Colorado Springs to push GOP turnout, that he might win that state to get elected. But, I expect Obama will take Ohio, and possibly at least two of the other three, as well. If I see VA called for Obama on Tuesday night, I'll be feeling very good.
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