The Obama-Romney electoral map

Of course, Mitt Romney hasn’t secured the Republican nomination yet. But now that the bookies have him odds on at 1/9, it’s definitely worth thinking about how he’d shape up against Barack Obama. Does he have much of a chance? Well, yes, actually. The head-to-head polls so far point to a close fight between Obama and Romney. And Obama’s approval ratings and GDP growth forecasts — better predictors of the result at this stage — also point to a very tight election. It’s shaping up to be one of those elections where the key to victory is not the national popular vote, but the Electoral College. It’ll be winning each individual state, and its electoral votes, that matters. 270 is the target.

The map above — which I produced at 270towin.com based on recent polls and previous results — shows the states likely to be carried by Obama (blue) and Romney (red) if the national vote is as close as it looks now.  Of course it’s just a rough guide: it’s not unfeasible, for instance, that Obama could win the red-shaded state of Indiana (which he carried in ’08). And, of course, not all of the unshaded states are equal: Obama is much more likely to win Michigan (which has voted Democrat since 1992) than South Carolina (which hasn’t since 1976). But if the election is close, the outcome will probably be decided by some combination of those 11 unshaded states. These are the 2012 swing states.

On the face of it, this looks like advantage Obama. The blue states above give a total of 217 electoral votes, compared to 171 from the red states. This means Obama needs just 53 of the swing states’ 150 electoral votes to reach that magic 270, while Romney needs 99. Obama could achieve that with any three of the four largest states — Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan — while Romney would have to carry at least six states to win.

These are the sorts of calculations that determine a campaign’s strategy: where to concentrate ads, candidate appearances and organisation. A couple of weeks ago, Obama’s campaign manager Jim Messina presented a video laying out five possible ‘paths’ to the nomination, such as the ‘South Path’ which relies on winning North Carolina and Virginia and the ‘Midwest Path’ whereby Obama takes Ohio and Iowa. Unlike my map, though, Messina starts with the assumption that Obama carries every state John Kerry won in 2004. But that’s by no means certain, with polls showing Romney ahead in New Hampshire and Obama looking vulnerable in Pennsylvania and Michigan. Game on, as they say.