The Math of a Victory

Come Novmber 6th, Mr. Romney or Mr. Obama will need 270 electoral votes to become President.

The New York Times currently has the number of projected solid/leaning to Obama at 237.
Solid/leaning Romney is 206.

To double check how "solid" the leaning numbers are, here are the 5 leaning Obama states and their current chances of winning, according to FiveThirtyEight.

Maine 99%
New Mexico 97%
Minnesota 96%
Michigan 95%
Pennsylvania 92%

So there you go...those are the "leaning" states. So starting with numbers of 237 and 206 seems pretty safe.

Which means, these are the only states that matter for the 2012 election, listed with electoral votes:

Florida (29)
Ohio (18)
Virginia (13)
Wisconsin (10)
Colorado (9)
Iowa (6)
Nevada (6)
New Hampshire (4)

That's it. Eight states. 95 tossup electoral votes. And Romney needs 64.

In other words, he can only lose 31 of these votes.
So if he loses Florida, he needs to sweep the rest.
If he loses Ohio and Virginia, he can still win with the other 6.
If he gets the 4 biggest states that's enough.

So let's take a look at these 8 states right now.

Florida
Currently 538 has projected Obama has a 63% chance of winning Florida. But that's just 1.8 points of polling. So it's close. But I'm sure Romney wishes he was up 1.8 instead of down 1.8.

Ohio
Obama up 3.1 points for a 72% chance of winning.

Virginia
Obama up 3 points for a 73% chance of winning.

Wisconsin
Obama up 4.9, 81%.

Colorado
Obama up 3.4, 72%.

Iowa
Obama up 3.6, 72%.

Nevada
Obama up 5.2, 82%.

New Hampshire
Obama up 6.4, 83%.

To sum up: in the 8 battleground states, Obama is up (reasonably) comfortably in all of them.

Assumption #1: Romney will not be able to win all 7 states except for Florida, which means he needs to win Florida. So on election night, if a network calls Florida for Obama, the election is over.

Assumption #2: Wisconsin, Nevada and New Hampshire are large leads, and could almost be already in Obama's category. That puts Obama at 257, needing just one of Florida-Ohio-Virginia or the Colorado-Iowa combo.

Assumption #3: For Romney to flip about 5-6 points across all battleground states, he's going to need a semi-miracle. Either a trouncing in all the debates that exposes a severe Obama weakness or some sort of tragic economic news that shoots a hole in Obama's recovery rhetoric. Or just start handing out cash in Florida, Ohio, Virginia and Colorado. Cause Romney needs them all.