Romney picks up Ohio from a uniform swing to an even PV - easily. He gets all he needs from a uniform swing (including VA which is about 0.5% on the GOP side of the ledger), except for NH. NH is the key.
You're still wrong , but almost right, and a lot righter than I was thinking you were. I made a dumb swing/trend mistake about when to cut things in half.
However, when you factor in some predictable non-uniform swings it does not look good for Mittens in a close PV race. Indiana rebounding for an abnormally high Democratic trend in 2008 will suck up part of the Republican swing, as will rebound in the upper plains states such of Montana, Nebraska, and the Dakotas. Plus the demographic trends that have been making Virginia more Democratic have slowly continued these past four years. In an even PV situation, it looks to me that the GOP loses Virginia.
By contrast, the reason why the Lower Mississippi Valley states trended heavily Republican in 2008 is still there as Obama is running for reelection. I expect that of the states that heavily trended GOP in 2008, only Arkansas will will see a large rebound to the Democrats. (Tho not enough to put Arkansas in play, merely enough to ensure that in a national close PV race, Romney does not go over 60% of the PV in Arkansas.)
Plus the evidence indicates that Romney no longer has a "home state" advantage in New Hampshire. I don't know why, maybe the New Hampshirites got offended by what Mittens thought of their trees. Whatever the reason, as I said earlier, the post-NH primary polling no longer shows Romney benefiting in that State from a much greater than national swing in his favor.
