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| FILE - In this Sept. 26, 2012, file photo election clerk Karl Althaus sorts through boxes of absentee ballots at the Polk County Election Office in Des Moines, Iowa. Five weeks to Election Day, President Barack Obama is within reach of the requisite 270 Electoral College votes needed to win a second term according to an Associated Press analysis. Mitt Romney can still prevail in the race to amass the necessary votes, but his path to victory has become much narrower. To overtake Obama, the Republican challenger would need to quickly gain the upper hand in nearly all of the nine states where he and Obama are competing the hardest. |
DES MOINES, Iowa
(AP) -- Five weeks to Election Day, President Barack Obama is within
reach of the 270 electoral votes needed to win a second term.
Republican Mitt Romney's path to victory is narrowing.
To
overtake Obama, Romney would need to quickly gain the upper hand in
nearly all of the nine states where he and Obama are competing the
hardest.
Polls show the president with a
steady lead in many of them as Romney looks to shift the dynamics of the
race, starting with their first debate Wednesday in Denver.
"We'd rather be us than them," says Jennifer Psaki, an Obama spokeswoman.
But
Romney's running mate Paul Ryan says there's time for the GOP ticket to
win. "In these kinds of races people focus near the end, and that's
what's happening now," he told "Fox News Sunday."
If
the election were held today, an Associated Press analysis shows Obama
would win at least 271 electoral votes, with likely victories in crucial
Ohio and Iowa along with 19 other states and the District of Columbia.
Romney would win 23 states for a total of 206.
To
oust the Democratic incumbent, Romney would need to take up-for-grabs
Florida, Colorado, Nevada, North Carolina, New Hampshire and Virginia,
which would put him at 267 votes, and upend Obama in either Ohio or
Iowa.
The AP analysis isn't meant to be
predictive. Rather, it is intended to provide a snapshot of a race that
until recently has been stubbornly close in the small number of the most
contested states.
It is based on a review of
public and private polls, television advertising and numerous interviews
with campaign and party officials as well as Republican and Democratic
strategists in the competitive states and in Washington.
In
the final weeks before the Nov. 6 vote, Obama is enjoying a burst of
momentum and has benefited from growing optimism about the economy as
well as a series of Romney stumbles. Most notably, a secret video
surfaced recently showing the Republican nominee telling a group of
donors that 47 percent of Americans consider themselves victims
dependent on the government.
To be sure, much
could change in the coming weeks, which will feature three presidential
and one vice presidential debate. A host of unknowns, both foreign and
domestic, could rock the campaign, knocking Obama off course and giving
Romney a boost in the homestretch.
Barring that, Romney's challenge is formidable.
Obama
started the campaign with a slew of electoral-rich coastal states
already in his win column. From the outset, Romney faced fewer paths to
cobbling together the state-by-state victories needed to reach the magic
number.
It's grown even narrower in recent
weeks, as Romney has seen his standing slip in polls in Ohio, with 18
electoral votes, and Iowa, with six. That forced him to abandon plans to
try to challenge Obama on traditionally Democratic turf so he could
redouble his efforts in Ohio and Iowa, as well as Colorado, Florida, New
Hampshire, North Carolina, Nevada and Virginia.
Romney is hoping that come Election Day, on-the-fence voters tip his way. But there are hurdles there, too.
Early
voting is under way in dozens of states, and national and key states
surveys show undecided voters feel more favorably toward Obama than
Romney.
The Republican is in a tight battle with Obama in Florida, as well as Colorado, North Carolina and Nevada.
But Ohio's shifting landscape illustrates Romney's troubles over the past few weeks.
Republicans
and Democrats agree that Obama's solid lead in public and private
polling in the state is for real. Over the past month, the president has
benefited from an improving economic situation in the state; its 7.2
percent unemployment rate is below the 8.1 percent national average.
Obama's team also attributes his Ohio edge to the auto bailout and GM
plant expansions in eastern Ohio.
Obama and
his campaign have hammered Romney on his tax policies, arguing that the
former Massachusetts governor favors the rich while the president as a
defender of everyone else.
The president has
seen the same good fortune in Iowa. A poll released Saturday by The Des
Moines Register illustrates his advantage, showing Obama with 49 percent
to 45 percent for Romney. The margin of error was plus or minus 3.5
percentage points.
"It's a direct result of the time and resources he's been forced to spend here," said Iowa Republican strategist John Stineman.
Indeed,
Obama intently focused on the state ahead of an early voting period
that began last week. He campaigned in Iowa aggressively this summer and
dumped in a ton of TV advertising, much of it depicting Romney as
wealthy and out-of-touch with working Americans.
Obama doesn't just have the wind at his back in those states.
The
president also appears to be in stronger shape than Romney in Virginia,
which has 13 electoral votes, and in New Hampshire, with four votes,
even though Romney vacations often in the state where he has a lakeside
home. Romney and GOP allies are being outspent in that state
considerably, a sign of trouble for the Republican challenger.
Underscoring
his challenges, Romney also has been forced to spend millions of
dollars a week defending himself in North Carolina, a GOP-leaning state
that's more conservative than most of the states that will decide the
election.
Polls now show a competitive race
there. Democrats boast of having registered 250,000 new voters in the
state since April 2011. It's an eye-popping total in a state that Obama
won by just 14,000 votes four years ago. A flood of new voters,
presumably a chunk of them Democrats, could help keep that state within
Obama's reach this year.
Also, Romney's effort
to challenge Obama in Democratic-leaning Wisconsin, home state of
running mate Paul Ryan, appears to have fizzled. Despite millions of
dollars spent on TV in the last few weeks by both sides, polls show
Obama with a clear lead in Wisconsin.
Romney's goal of forcing Obama to defend Michigan - Romney's native state - and Pennsylvania never materialized.
"The
big strategic moment coming out of the conventions in my view was
whether or not Romney and his campaign could succeed in expanding the
parameters of the battleground," said Tad Devine, a top adviser to 2000
Democratic nominee Al Gore and 2004 nominee John Kerry. "They have not
been able to do that."
All this has left
Romney with an extraordinarily tight path and few options but to bear
down in the states where he is competing aggressively. Time, though, is
running out.
