The fourth path is the “Midwest Path” which involves adding Ohio (and its 18 electoral votes) and Iowa (with its six) to Kerry’s total to get to 270 on the nose.
This is probably the 2nd most likely path to victory
However I happen to live in Ohio and have a good feeling for how it should turn out.
I knew Obama would win in 2008 and he won with 51.7 or about 207,000 votes out of 5.2 million
However Ohio elected ALL Republicans in state wide races last year in 2010. While governor Kasich overreached in his first term , Ohio simply has too many folks out of work at this point
Also Voters will be required to present an ID and the voter rolls will be purged of dead people who historically voted here in the past.
Ohio has chosen the winner of the Presidential election in every year since Harry Truman
This year in my opinion it will do the same.
Obama knows there is No Marco Rubio here to go up against.No Ohio politician in either party is overly popular statewide
Obama will no doubt try and play up the fact that he saved the US car industry in which Ohio plays a fairly big role.
But many construction workers and laborers are simply not working here
However Mitt Romney’s skill be tested in trying to pull out Ohio is in “threading the needle” in this diverse state
Mitt will have the task of uniting the Republican party to all help win this very diverse and very critical state
Sarah Palin has angered many Republicans but she is especially popular in many large rural areas in Ohio
Romney’s business acumen should help in big cities where unemployment is quite high
Rick Santorum Rick Perry Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul have solid bases here
Speaker Boehner is popular around Cincinnati and John Kasich is Columbus born and bred
If Marco Rubio becomes the GOP VP nominee ,which is highly likely given the events of the past week, Obama may decide to focus more on Ohio than Florida
Obama won Iowa Wisconsin Michigan Ohio Pennsylvania and Indiana and last time
Indiana clearly won’t be won this time
Of all the other 5, Ohio is the most crucial
However now all 6 of those states above have Republican governors,
The Republicans can not expect to any of the 6 if they can not win Ohio
Obama’s entire focus in my opinion is that he wins either Florida or Ohio
By doing so reaching 270 electoral votes is possible
However without Ohio and Florida ,which I feel Romney is clearly leading at this point in,
His task becomes much more difficult
Stay tuned for part 5
And Obama’s expansion path analysis
