The Post does a good job of laying out, in detail, the states that Romney needs to win in November, and they explain why he may have a difficult time doing so.
It's quite interesting how Obama's fortunes have turned around from a year ago. In part, it's because the GOP primary really took the wind out of the Republicans' sales. In part, it's also because the President has been playing a much tougher game with the GOP over the last year or so, and it's worked to (slowly) win people back to his side. Mitt Romney faces a narrow path to the presidency, one that requires winning back states that President Obama took from Republicans in 2008 and that has few apparent opportunities for Romney to steal away traditionally Democratic states.
Washington Post:
Mitt Romney faces a narrow path to the presidency, one that requires winning back states that President Obama took from Republicans in 2008 and that has few apparent opportunities for Romney to steal away traditionally Democratic states.
Months ago, Obama’s campaign advisers laid out five distinct ways for the president to clear the threshold of 270 electoral college votes and win reelection. As Romney, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, and his advisers chart their strategy, they plan to target a dozen to 15 states and say that they, too, have more routes than their opponents claim.
But Romney’s team acknowledges that any realistic course to 270 starts with winning back three historically Republican states that Obama won in 2008 — Indiana, North Carolina and Virginia — and believes that changing demographics in Virginia present a challenge.
After that, Romney must play take-away with the Democrats in a number of other states that the Obama campaign flipped to its column four years ago. The two biggest and most important are Ohio and Florida, which advisers see as must-wins for Romney unless he can pick off one of the 18 states that Democrats have won in each of the past five elections.
