Could Romney win any New England states?

[Badger]

Maybe New Hampshire if he wins by a smallish margin nationwide. ME-2 is on the table if its a 7-8 point national win. Otherwise no.

[Badger]

Given Romney's profile, CT will fall long before ME. CT has an unpopular Democratic governor and an upscale electorate. The GOP electorate in Maine is very downscale. And the swing voters are working-class Franco-Americans, who Romney has zero appeal to.

New Hampshire is hard to measure since we have not had any elections there since 2010. I suspect the big Gay Marriage fight coming next spring will have as big an impact as any national environment.

CT goes GOP before ME? Not even with Jodi Rell as running mate. The CT electorate is hardly all "upscale" (see Hartford, New Haven, Bridgeport, etc.), and much of the upscale areas have largely abandoned an increasingly socially conservative GOP during the last 2 decades.

Until I see polls showing that an unpopular Democratic governor is actually dragging down Obama's numbers there, I will remain highly skeptical of any potential impact.

[Badger]

He could theoretically win all of them, obviously.  In a 50-50 election he'd win New Hampshire.

Probably not even then. NH been voted about +1-2 Dem compared to national PVI, and has been voting at least comparable to national PVI since then (2000 results being skewed by a strong Nader vote, back when such a vote was still a leftist protest vote). No politician had a better connection with the Granite State than McCain, and even then he ran under national PVI. If McCain couldn't match that, Romney probably can't either.