Does Obama Have a Chance

So does Obama have a chance? Of course he does. He's president of the United States; he has large subsections of the population that will vote for him no matter what. The only question is: does he win 270 electoral votes.  

I don't think so. I'm not saying Obama will lose - only that he is in a very weak position. Enthusiasm is down, job approval is precariously low and he has to play defense. In 2008 Democrats came within a percentage point of winning Missouri and Obama made a valiant run at Montana, Arizona and Georgia. Now no one is thinking that Obama can carry Missouri, Montana, Arizona or Georgia.

I think that Romney wins all of McCain's states plus Indiana and North Carolina without a question.

Here's the 2008 Obama-McCain map.




Here is the 2012 map. I put Indiana and North Carolina in red as I don't think Obama has a chance for either state. New Hampshire, Virginia, Florida, Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa, Colorado and Nevada are in gray as they are states that Romney can realistically win.

The 2012 Map with toss-up states (Indiana and NC are in Red)



I think that Romney will win Florida fairly convincingly. Iowa and Colorado I also put in the lean Romney column. Virginia and Ohio are harder to say. Adjusting turn-out to 2004 levels for Republicans and 2008 turnouts for Democrats show a very close race.  Government workers will turn-out at high levels for Obama. Black votes will drop but by how much? Right now, forcing myself to chose I think that both states (Virginia and Ohio) vote for Romney by 3-5 points,  52-48. NH is a tough case. A lot of Massachussets liberals have moved to NH but their vote total will probably drop. Obama also won a lot of disaffected "any-but-the-above", Ross Perot voters in 2008. He won't have them in 2012.





I'm not certain about Wisconsin. The re-call this summer shows that Wisconsin is in play. I think it will be very close there. Nevada. I'm not certain how it will go. We will know for sure in October when we see where the candidates are spending their time and where the campaigns put (or pull) their advertising. 

Obama's outerwall has been broken. His forces will retreat to the keep (Ohio and Virginia). I think both will be overrun by Romney's troops.

EDIT 10/5/2012: (oops. part of this was left in draft)