Was Romney ever perceived as having a chance?

[The Mikado]

There were a few points in 2012 when Romney definitely had a chance.

By Election Day it was obvious his goose was cooked, though. Hurricane Sandy was the nail in the coffin the way I remember it. Obama got to look like a hero responding to a natural disaster and got to look bipartisan by hugging Chris Christie and etc and a crisis like that, if well handled, is an advantage a President gets that a challenger can't hope to compete with.

[The Mikado]

The Obama team was confident in part because they thought they had the Electoral College advantage, which in fact turned out to be true.

Obama won the popular vote by 3.8% and got 332 EVs. Take that to a tied popular vote and Obama gets 285 EVs. You have to swing all the way to Romney +1.8% to get Romney the win. This is a big part of what caused Hillary Clinton's overconfidence in 2016: Dems had had the EV advantage to some extent in 2004 (0.4%), 2008 (2.2%), and 2012 (1.8%). Who would've guessed that Trump's giant 2.8% EV advantage would be the very next cycle?

In 2012, Obama knew perfectly well he had at least some cushion even during the periods when he and Romney were basically tied.

[The Mikado]

Here's a fun thought. This is an Obama 270/Romney 268 map. You have just one rogue Obama elector and all of the sudden you have a Romney/Biden Administration, given the control of the House/Senate.