Obama’s Path to Victory

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.”