With Mitt Romney running significantly behind President Obama in recent Ohio polls, Nate Silver looks at the most-likely scenarios for Romney to win the election without the Buckeye state.

“So one sign that Mr. Romney’s team is preparing a ‘Plan B’ to win the election without Ohio would be if they begin to place more emphasis on Iowa and Nevada. They would then have to hope that a shift in the national environment would carry states like Virginia and Florida back into their column.”

“It isn’t a great plan. But when you’re the Republican candidate and are down outside the margin of error in Ohio with six weeks to go, you don’t have any great plans.”

The Week: “Some Republicans are having doubts as Romney’s campaign hits a rough patch, with a few wondering whether another candidate might have had a better shot.”

With Rep. Todd Akin (R) officially staying in Missouri’s U.S. Senate race, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D) launched a new ad just hammering him.

First Read: “It’s an interesting tactic by the McCaskill campaign to NOT use Akin’s voice in its first big hit. Perhaps they don’t want to OVER-play it early (and save that if for some reason they are struggling to put him away in October). We only ask because the first hit, using an announcer to read Akin’s quotes rather than HEARING Akin, struck us as less effective.”

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President Obama told the Des Moines Register that if he’s fortunate enough to win a second term, his re-election will send a message to Republicans that Americans want them to follow his agenda.

Said Obama: “What I think most Iowans certainly believe is that if the majority of the American people have said, ‘This is the direction we need to go,’ and the Republicans in Congress say, ‘No, we’re going to go in the exact opposite direction,’ that’s probably not going to leave them to keep that majority too long.”

President Obama “has blocked out three days to prepare for the October debates, but with the constant pressures that come with one of the world’s most important jobs, aides worry he may not get enough practice at the podium,” the Los Angeles Times reports.

His “debate retreat” is scheduled to start Sunday and “includes time for the daily battery of presidential meetings, leaving room for three afternoon debate sessions — if no crises flare up. Obama has already canceled some debate preparation because of events in the Middle East.”

Meanwhile, Mitt Romney “has worked on his strategy for weeks, prepping at his home in New Hampshire and at his Boston headquarters, but also squeezing in time as he travels.”

Mitt Romney released a new ad to counter the fallout from his infamous 47% comments caught on hidden camera video, saying “President Obama and I both care about poor and middle-class families.”

First Read: “Folks, this is an admission that the “47%” remarks – and the Obama camp’s new TV ads on them — have done real damage. Realize: Candidate-to-camera ads are typically when all else is failing and the bonds of trust with the voters are fraying.”

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A new Washington Post-ABC News poll finds 54% of Americans have unfavorable views of Mitt Romney’s comments — caught on film at a fundraiser — regarding the “47 percent” of people who pay not federal income taxes and simply would not vote for him. Just 32% saw them favorable.

In addtiion, 61% of all Americans “express negative views of how Romney is running his campaign. That number is up significantly from July — the near-certain result of the much-publicized comments by Romney.”

Meanwhile, Nate Silver says President Obama’s odds of winning the election, according to his forecast model, have increased by 7% — 80% chance of winning the Electoral College from 73% — since the hidden camera video of Romney making his comments came out.

A new Bloomberg News poll finds President Obama leading Mitt Romney among likely voters by six points, 49% to 43%.

Key findings: 48% to 39% give Obama an advantage for his economic plan over Romney’s even though 60% say the nation is on the wrong track.

A video has surfaced showing Wisconsin U.S. Senate candidate Tommy Thompson (R) telling a Tea Party group back in June…”who better than me, who’s already finished one of the entitlement programs, to come up with programs to do away with Medicaid and Medicare?”

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St. Louis Post-Dispatch: “There was some national media on hand at Todd Akin’s news conference Tuesday, apparently there in the belief that he might announce a last-second withdrawal from the U.S. Senate race on today’s withdrawal deadline.”

“But anyone who’s watched Akin in the six weeks since his ‘legitimate rape‘ comments made him a household name knew that wasn’t going to happen.”

“He attacks the 47 percent of the American people who he says pay no federal taxes.  And he attacks, he, Romney? Attacking someone on taxes? I mean, Woah! That’s like me attacking someone for being passionate in politics.”

— Vice President Joe Biden, quoted by ABC News, commenting on Mitt Romney’s remarks which were caught on hidden camera video.

Charlie Cook: “Leading Democratic and Republican pollsters and strategists privately say that the Obama lead is around 4 or 5 points and is neither widening nor narrowing. The convention bounces have dissipated, but Romney’s negatives remain quite high and are not diminishing. In the Gallup three-week super-samples–almost 10,000 interviews–the percentage of Democrats saying that they will definitely vote has moved up to the point that it is now virtually tied with Republicans.”

The Obama campaign launched a second TV ad slamming Mitt Romney over his “47%” hidden camera video remarks, NBC News reports.

The ad will run in eight states: Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, and Virginia. The first TV ad seizing using the hidden camera video — released yesterday — was aimed to just Ohio.

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Dick Morris told Sean Hannity that, “barring any debate debacle,” Mitt Romney will win the presidential election by “4 or 5 points” and will win Florida, Ohio, Nevada, Virginia and Pennsylvania.

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