How the Romney Campaign Believes It Can Win the Presidency

By Toby Harnden

Based on conversations with the Romney campaign, including a frank discussion with a senior Romney adviser, here's how they see the Republican nominee winning.

Of course, campaign aides spin reporters because they want their optimistic scenarios to become part of a media narrative that helps drive voters. They are also part of a self-reinforcing campaign bubble in which belief in eventual victory is a prerequisite of getting through gruelling days.

But the adviser quoted here, who correctly identified to me weeks beforehand that the first debate would be a game-changing moment for Romney, has always predicted a very close race and is honest enough to identify states such as Nevada which Romney probably won't win.

If we look at the 2008 electoral college map, when Obama beat Senator John McCain by an electoral college landslide of 365 to 173 (and seven percentage points in the popular vote), we can view the terrain on which the 2012 contest is being fought.

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Looking back at the 2008 electoral college map, when Obama beat Senator John McCain by an electoral college landslide of 365 to 173 (and seven percentage points in the popular vote), we can view the terrain on which the 2012 contest is being fought.

The distribution of electoral college votes (which are based on congressional districts and U.S. Senate seats) has changed slightly in 2012. Because of the changes, Obama's advantage has shrunk to 359 to 179 in the electoral college. The winner needs 270 votes. So for Romney to win, he needs to take 91 electoral college votes from the states that Obama won in 2008.

We can immediately give one vote in Nebraska (based on winning a congressional district) and 11 in Indiana to Romney. Obama is not campaigning for those. Next up is 15 in North Carolina. Obama won it by just 14,000 votes in 2008 and early voting patterns indicate he's probably going to lose there.

Then we have Florida - its 29 votes are a huge prize. The latest Miami Herald/El Nuevo Herald poll has Obama being crushed by six points there. That's the next state Romney needs. The Romney adviser was very confident, telling me: 'North Carolina's baked. Florida's baked.'

From there, it gets more difficult. Virginia, with 13 votes, is tighter than Florida but, again, early voting patterns suggest Romney will win it, though not by much. The Romney adviser said that 'Virginia's baked' though he added that it was 'much closer than Florida'.

At this point, the Obama campaign would be really sweating. But so too would Romney's team. We'd be down to Ohio, just as President George W. Bush was in 2004. This year, it has 18 electoral college votes.

If Romney bags Ohio, he's on 266 electoral college votes and has multiple opportunities to get the four more he needs. Colorado's nine, New Hampshire's four, Iowa's six and Wisconsin's 10 look most likely. It's very hard to see Romney winning Florida, Virginia and Ohio and Obama keeping the White House.

Romney's aides seem very bullish about Iowa - more so, even, than Colorado, where they say he took a hit in their internal polling with women independents after Obama's handling of Hurricane Sandy. The latest Des Moines Register poll gives Obama a five-point advantage. But the Romney campaigns that the same poll put Obama up 17 in 2008 and he won the state by 10 points.

Privately, the Romney campaign has effectively conceded Nevada, which has six votes. 'Nevada, we'll probably fall short,' said the Romney adviser. 'That's just tough.' Romney hasn't travelled there since October 24th, just as Obama has stayed away from North Carolina.

More remarkably, the adviser said that Minnesota, 10 votes, and Pennsylvania, 20 votes, were distinct possibiities. He even predicted a possible win in Minnesota.

Pennsylvania is intriguing. There's a Susquehanna poll that puts the two candidates dead level. Obama has to be a heavy favourite - no Republican presidential candidate has won there since George H.W. Bush in 1988

But the Obama campaign has sent Bill Clinton to do four events in Pennsylvania on the eve of election day. After Obama himself - and perhaps even ahead of Obama - Clinton is their most valuable campaign resource. There is clearly some worry there.

So that's the electoral college arithmetic. There is not too much difference between the way the two campaigns view it.

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