You're reading: Romney has path to victory, but Obama still has slight edge

WASHINGTON, Oct 21 (Reuters) - Suddenly, Republican Mitt Romney has a viable path to victory in the tight battle for the White House.

Democratic President Barack Obama still appears to have the
upper hand in the state-by-state fight to cobble together the
270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency in the Nov. 6
election.

But Romney’s recent surge in the polls after his strong
performance in his first debate with Obama on Oct. 3 has
propelled the Republican into the lead or within striking
distance in enough states to give him a reasonable chance of
beating Obama to the finish line.

Ohio, long seen as the key to unlocking the White House,
looms large in every victory scenario for either candidate –
particularly Romney. Until the last two weeks, polls did not
show Romney with enough support in other crucial states to give
him a clear path even if he won Ohio.

But he has that now, as the campaign enters its final two
weeks with eight states in play as toss-ups.

“Before the first debate the electoral math looked like a
real reach for Romney. Today, it looks quite possible,” said
Peter Brown, a pollster at Quinnipiac University.

“Ohio is the big unknown, and it’s Romney’s biggest
obstacle,” Brown said. “If Romney can win Ohio, he’s likely to
win the election.”

The changing map has led Romney to make some shifts in
strategy.

He began moving some staff from North Carolina, a one-time
battleground where he now has a solid lead, to other swing
states this week. The former Massachusetts governor’s campaign
also bolstered its television advertising in Iowa and Wisconsin,
where polls indicate Obama has slim leads.

The RealClearPolitics average of polls gives Obama a lead of
at least four percentage points in states that account for 237
electoral votes, while Romney enters the final stretch with an
edge of that size in states that represent 206 electoral votes.

That leaves a reduced battlefield of eight toss-up states
and 95 electoral votes, all won by Obama in the 2008 election –
Colorado (9 electoral votes), Florida (29), Iowa (6), Nevada
(6), New Hampshire (4), Ohio (18), Virginia (13) and Wisconsin
(10).

In the last two weeks Romney has moved into a small lead or
a virtual tie with Obama in Florida, Colorado, New Hampshire and
Virginia, which together account for 55 electoral votes. A sweep
of all four still would leave Romney nine electoral votes short
of victory – a big reason why the race is boiling down to the
battle in Ohio.

A win in Ohio would put Romney over the top and give him
some margin of error to lose other states that are still in
play. If he does not win Ohio, either Wisconsin or a combination
of Nevada and Iowa still could be enough to win, although Obama,
in addition to having slim leads in Wisconsin and Iowa, also
leads in Nevada.

“Things have moved consistently in Romney’s direction, but
he still hasn’t unlocked the gates to enough places yet,” said
pollster Thomas Riehle of YouGov, a market research company that
is conducting polling in swing states. “Romney needs more good
news before he’s a safe bet to win.”

LOOKING A LOT LIKE 2000, AND 2004

The tightening race has created many different scenarios,
including the possibility that the Electoral College winner will
not capture the most votes nationwide – similar to what happened
in 2000, when Republican George W. Bush got more electoral votes
than Democrat Al Gore, who received more of the popular vote.

The prominence of Ohio also has invoked memories of 2004,
when Bush won re-election over Democrat John Kerry in the early
hours of the morning after Election Day by a margin of less than
120,000 votes in the Midwestern state.

Both candidates are pouring time and resources into Ohio,
where Obama has held a steady lead for months and now has an
average poll advantage of more than 2 percentage points,
according to RealClearPolitics.

HOLDING ON IN THE MIDWEST?

Romney, a wealthy former private equity executive who
opposed the Obama-backed federal bailout of the auto industry,
has struggled to connect with blue-collar voters in Ohio, where
one in eight jobs is tied to the auto industry and the state
unemployment rate is lower than the national average of 7.8
percent.

Iowa and Wisconsin, where RealClearPolitics puts Obama’s
average lead at between two and three percentage points, also
have lower state unemployment rates than nationally.

Along with Ohio, they could give the Obama campaign a
Midwestern stronghold of 34 electoral votes that protects him
against potential losses elsewhere.

“As you look across the country, you are seeing the
president is continuing to be very strong in the Midwest in
places like Ohio, Iowa, Wisconsin,” Obama campaign manager Jim
Messina said. “I think we’ve held our support in the Midwest.”

If Obama wins the states where he currently has comfortable
leads and adds just those three Midwestern states, he would have
271 electoral votes – enough to be re-elected.

“Until we see something that suggests other states are in
play, these Wisconsin, Iowa and Ohio numbers mean it’s still a
reach for Romney to win,” said Lee Miringoff, a Marist College
pollster.

He released surveys on Thursday showing Obama with a lead of
eight points in Iowa and six points in Wisconsin, although a
survey by Public Policy Polling on Friday gave Romney a
one-point edge in Iowa.

Romney campaign aides say they are confident that he has
enough momentum in Ohio and other swing states to pull out a
win, pointing to his growing crowds and improving poll numbers,
including those from the campaign’s own surveys.

“The dynamic has very much changed in the swing states,”
said a senior Romney adviser who spoke on condition of
anonymity. “The underlying fundamentals in the swing states have
changed dramatically in Romney’s favor.”

In states where Romney has made gains, they have been fueled
in part by improvements in his personal favorability ratings,
gains with independents and a reduction in Obama’s large lead
among unmarried women voters.

Romney advisers said the first debate eased the concerns of
some voters in swing states who have been bombarded for months
by attack ads portraying the Republican as an out-of-touch
multimillionaire with little sympathy for the middle class.

“People are getting a lot of information and what they’re
seeing is very much at odds with the ads that have run,” the
Romney adviser said. “That has been the biggest impact.”

The Obama campaign is counting on what polls show is strong
support from the growing Hispanic community to make a difference
in Nevada and Colorado, although the level of intensity and
voter turnout among Hispanics will be a wild card.

Any gains for Obama among Hispanics could be offset,
however, by what polls have found is decreased support among the
young and first-time voters who helped sweep Obama to victory
over Republican John McCain in 2008.

Most national polls show Obama and Romney deadlocked. A
Reuters/Ipsos daily online tracking poll on Saturday gave Obama
a 1-point national advantage. Ipsos projects the president will
win 315 electoral votes.

In such a close race, any surprise development during the
final two weeks could loom large.

Obama and Romney will have their final debate, on foreign
policy, on Monday in Boca Raton, Florida, where Romney is once
again likely to challenge the president on his handling of the
deadly attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

The White House on Saturday denied a report by The New York
Times that the Obama administration and Iran had agreed to hold
one-on-one talks about Iran’s nuclear program, another issue
that could shape the narrative of the campaign’s final days.

Meanwhile, Obama’s handling of the struggling economy will
again be the focus when the Department of Labor releases the
unemployment figures for October on Nov. 2, just four days
before the election. The report for September gave Democrats a
boost by showing that the nation’s unemployment rate was 7.8
percent, down from 8.1 percent in August.

“It was always going to be a really close election,” Ipsos
pollster Julia Clark said. “But the electoral math still adds up
in Obama’s favor at the moment.”