January 20 ,2012
Obama's Many Paths to Victory
The 2012 Presidential election is moving into high gear as Mitt Romney increasingly looks like the Republican nominee. He is already focusing more on Obama than his hapless Republican rivals. Though polls all last year showed one new front-runner after another, none could close the deal with Republican voters, and when the primary voting actually began, Romney won early critical victories in both Iowa and New Hampshire, and looks to put the race away by winning very conservative South Carolina.
Obama is not sitting still. He has raised a huge amount of money so far, and his campaign will probably raise even more than the 750 million dollars it generated in 2008. While 10 months is a very long time in politics, what can we say about how the Obama vs Romney race will shape up?
The key issues that will shape the outcome are the economy, the Hispanic vote, Europe, and the issue of income inequality. First, the economy has been showing some signs of life lately. Unemployment has dropped to 8.6% or so, and 3 million jobs have been added in the last 2 years. In December, 200,000 jobs were added. If that pace continues for the next 10 months, the impact will be visible to voters, and the primary argument Romney will be using will weaken. Obama will win easily if we see these trends persist.
Secondly, the Republicans have a fatal weakness with Hispanic voters. Therir harsh anti-immigrant rhetoric has pushed this large voting bloc to tilt heavily Democrat. The largest consequence of that is a number of critical swing states are now ripe pickings for Obama. These include Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Florida, all of which he won last time, and could put Arizona in play in 2012.
Europe is the major wild card in the deck. If the Eurozone experiences a massive crisis with the unraveling of the single currency, or a series of bank collapses that ripple into the US, this would cause another major financial crisis, and tip us back into recession. A scenario like that would give Romney an edge.
Finally, Romney is vulnerable on issues of income inequality and the 1% vs 99% debate. Romney is very wealthy, worth over 200 million dollars, and this will be fodder for Obama’s attacks. Wealth is not evil in itself, but Romney made his money in dubious ways that won’t endear him to working-class voters. This will be a major theme of the Obama campaign.
On election night what matters is getting to 270 electoral votes, and the path there looks much easier for Obama than Romney. If we look at Obama’s base states, the ones that have voted Democrat in every election since 1992, he already has 242 electoral votes. Romney’s base is only 170 electoral votes. Obama needs to pick up 28 of the remainder, Romney needs to win 100. In fact, Obama’s position is even stronger. Both New Mexico and Nevada are likely Obama wins due to their high Hispanic vote, and Obama won both states by wide margins in 2008. They give him another 11 electoral votes.
Obama is then only 17 votes short. He can pick that up by winning Ohio alone, or Florida alone. He also can make that by winning Colorado, Iowa, and New Hampshire, or say Iowa and Virginia. He could also take 11 votes in Arizona and 9 in Colorado and win the election. Obama has many different paths to reelection.
Romney has a much tighter rope to walk. He has to win Ohio and Florida, and he has to hold Arizona and Missouri. He also has to win back North Carolina and Indiana. He then has a few options, but they are limited. He could lose Colorado or Virginia, but not both. If he loses either one though, then he has to win Iowa and New Hampshire. All four of those states went for Obama in 2008. Romney will be hard-pressed to win a close election, he really needs a very weak economy to overcome Obama’s structural advantage.
