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You are here: Home / 2012 Campaign / Obama’s Path to Victory

Obama’s Path to Victory

November 7, 2011 at 8:30 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Chris Cillizza
looks at the electoral map math for President Obama to secure
reelection and finds that “the ground on which the 2012 election will be
fought still favors him and should give Democrats some hope that he can
claim a second term in a year’s time.”

“In New Mexico (five electoral
votes) and Iowa (six electoral votes), Obama has an edge… Assuming
Obama can win those two states again — and hold the 19 other states he
won that also went to the Democrat, Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), in 2004 —
he would be just 12 electoral votes shy of 270. That means Obama could
would need to win only one of the following states to be reelected:
Florida, North Carolina, Ohio or Virginia… What would mess up that
math for Democrats, however, is if Obama were not able to hold some of
the states that backed both him and Kerry. The epicenter of that
potential Democratic problem is in the Rust Belt.”

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About Political Wire

goddard-bw-snapshotTaegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.

Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.

Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.

Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.

Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.

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