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| President Barack Obama walks to the podium as former President Bill Clinton waves to the crowd at right during a campaign event in the State Capitol Square, Sunday, Nov. 4, 2012, in Concord, N.H. |
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- President Barack Obama enters the final hours of the 2012 campaign with an edge in the hunt for the 270 electoral votes needed to win and more ways to reach that magic number. Yet the race is remarkably close in at least six states that could go either way, giving Republican Mitt Romney hope that he can pull off a come-from-behind victory.
If the election were held now, an
Associated Press analysis found that Obama would be all but assured of
249 votes, by carrying 20 states that are solidly Democratic or leaning
his way - Iowa, Nevada and Pennsylvania among them - and the District of
Columbia. Romney would lay claim to 206, from probable victories in 24
states that are strong Republican turf or tilt toward the GOP, including
North Carolina.
Up for grabs are 83 electoral
votes spread across Colorado, Florida, Ohio, New Hampshire, Virginia
and Wisconsin. Of those, Republicans and Democrats alike say Obama seems
in a bit better shape than Romney in Ohio and Wisconsin, while Romney
appears to be performing slightly better than Obama or has pulled even
in Florida and Virginia.
The AP's analysis is
not meant to be predictive, but instead to provide a snapshot of a race
that has been extraordinarily close from the outset. The analysis is
based on interviews with more than a dozen Republican and Democratic
strategists in Washington and in the most contested states; public
polls; internal campaign surveys; early vote figures; spending on
television advertising; candidate travel; and get-out-the-vote
organizations.
Both Republicans and Democrats
say Tuesday's election has tightened across the board the homestretch.
Many factors are adding to the uncertainty, including early vote
tallies, Election Day turnout and the impact of Superstorm Sandy in the
East. There's no telling the impact of Libertarian Party candidate Gary
Johnson, who's on the ballot in 48 states, including all the
battlegrounds, or Virgil Goode, an ex-congressman from Virginia who's
running on the Constitution Party ticket.
But
here's perhaps the biggest issue complicating efforts to get a handle on
where the race really stands: different assumptions that each party's
pollsters are making about the demographic makeup of the electorate.
Republicans are anticipating that the body of voters who end up casting
ballots will be more like the 2004 electorate, heavily white and male.
Democrats argue that 2012 voters as a whole will look more like the
electorate of four years ago when record numbers of minorities and young
people turned out.
The difference has meant
wildly disparate polling coming from Republicans and Democrats, with
each side claiming that it's measuring voter attitudes more precisely
than the opposition.
Said Republican
strategist Phil Musser: "The conviction with which both sides say they
are on a trajectory to victory is unique."
Tuesday
will determine which side is correct. For now, the gulf between the two
sides' polling has made it difficult to judge which candidate is faring
better in the six up-for-grabs states.
In the final hours of the campaign, national polls show a neck-and-neck race for the popular vote.
But
it's the Electoral College vote that elects the president. In that
state-by-state race, Obama long has had the advantage because he's
started with more states - and votes - in his column, giving him more
ways to cobble together the victories he needs to reach 270. Romney has
had fewer states and votes, and, thus few paths - though victory
remained within his reach.
Said Mo Elleithee, a
Democratic strategist who specializes in Virginia: "A 1 percent shift
in any demographic group in Virginia is the difference between Barack
Obama and Mitt Romney being president. That's how close this election
is."
Over the past month, Romney's standing in
national polls improved following strong performances in the October
debates, and he's strengthened his position in several states, including
Colorado, Florida and Virginia.
But all three
are too close to call and both Romney and Obama had final weekend
campaign appearances in them, underscoring their fluidity. Romney has
gained ground in North Carolina, which now is tipping his way. Obama's
team has all but acknowledged that it's the weakest for the Democrat of
the competitive states, and the president himself isn't visiting the
state in the final stretch.
But the key for
both campaigns is the Midwest, specifically Ohio. It offers 18 electoral
votes and figures prominently in each strategy. That urgency was
evident by the multiple visits to the state by each candidate in the
final days.
Obama has enough of an edge in the
electoral race that he could win the White House without carrying Ohio.
But it's hard to see how Romney does so.
That
assessment, and Obama's slight but stubbornly persistent edge in the
state, could explain why Romney made a late-game play for
Democratic-leaning Pennsylvania's 20 electoral votes. He began
advertising heavily in the state last week and put a stop in
Philadelphia on his Sunday schedule even though the state has voted for a
Democratic presidential nominee in every election since 1988.
Democrats
projected confidence about holding Pennsylvania, although Obama
responded with his own ads in the state and was sending former President
Bill Clinton to campaign for him there on Monday.
Not
that Romney is writing off Ohio. No Republican has won the White House
without winning the state, and, without it, Romney would need a near
sweep of the other battleground states.
"Ohio, you're probably going to decide the next president of the United States," Romney said Friday at a plant near Columbus.
Refusing
to cede ground in Ohio, Obama's campaign is flooding the state with
four visits in as many days to every major media market by the
president, first lady Michelle Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and
Clinton. Obama planned to finish campaigning in Ohio on Monday at a
Columbus rally with rocker Bruce Springsteen.
Obama's
team was projecting confidence in Ohio, arguing that the renewed debate
in the final weeks over the auto industry financial bailout - which
Obama signed and Romney has criticized - has boosted the president at
the right time while undercutting Romney. Republicans in the state don't
dispute that characterization, and Obama has kept the heat on Romney
over a TV ad he's running that misleadingly suggests that the auto
bailout helped U.S. auto giants send jobs to China.
"This
isn't a game. These are people's jobs. These are people's lives," Obama
told a raucous crowd in Friday in a Columbus suburb. "You don't scare
hard-working Americans just to scare up some votes."
Wisconsin,
the home state of GOP vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan, also figures
prominently in the calculations for both sides, but, again, is more
critical for Romney, who is looking to stop Obama in the Rust Belt.
Here's
why: Obama surest path to a second term cuts through both Ohio and
Wisconsin, and victories in those states would give him 271 electoral
votes as long as he wins all of the states that are solidly Democratic
or tilting his way.
Those include:
-Iowa,
where public and internal campaign polls shows Obama with an edge even
though Romney has campaigned in the state a half-dozen times in the past
two weeks and has spent the final hours of the campaign working to
narrow Obama's edge in early voting. Both candidates were in Iowa on
Saturday, and Romney was back Sunday playing hard for late-deciders his
team is confident will break their way and make the difference.
Obama
planned to return to the state Monday. Republicans characterized that
visit as a sign of instability while Obama's team said he wanted to end
his campaign in the state whose 2008 caucuses put him on the road to the
presidency.
-Nevada, where Republicans and
Democrats say the president has gained ground over the past few weeks,
despite high unemployment and foreclosures. Obama seems to be benefiting
from the state's large Hispanic voting bloc and political machinery of
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
Romney all
but acknowledged the president had an edge in the states. He scrapped
plans to visit the state in the final two days. Instead, he sent Ryan.
