Which states could Romney win back from Obama?

[minionofmidas]

Romney? In a theoretical best case scenario, all those won by Obama by less than 2 points. In a worst case scenario, of course, Romney holds on to Utah.

(Just trying to get my predictions laughed at in three years.)

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

If the auto industry is still in crisis four years from now, Romney would most likely win Michigan, Indiana and Ohio easy, if the auto industry has started to recover he'll only have a chance in Indiana.

He could win Colorado, North Carolina, and Florida but it all depends on how well Obama do these four coming years.

However although I believe Romney cabable of winning a national election, I think he'd have a hard time getting the GOP nominee.     

[Dan the Roman]

As a Massachusetts resident,and someone who worked in NH I think people are underestimating exactly how terrible of a candidate Mitt Romney is. People have a viscerally negative reaction to him. He will excite no one in the base, and win over few independents who simply won't trust him. He will lack McCain's appeal to working class whites, and the upscale voters will be turned off by his social conservatism and general creepiness.

I don't know, he seemed wildly popular in the mountain west and the upper Midwest. Plus, anybody with an "R" by their name is a terrible candidate in Massachusetts.

Kudos to that!

He was extremely well organized in the caucus states, where money and official support matter. He won two Primaries, Utah, for obvious reasons and Michigan, where he had the support of the whole state apparatus, and McCain who had said the auto industry should fail. In any competitive contest otherwise, including Iowa where he had long had a large lead, it vanished as soon as someone more genuine was in the mix.

It should be noted that all of this was after Romney spent more money than every other Republican combined. The fact was he never connected with voters. He was the default option for many because he looked good on paper, but this in turn meant his support was a mile wide and an inch deep. And he was disliked by a large majority of voters. His unfavorables were near 50% in the early primary states, and his unpopularity was sufficient that voters actual cast strategic votes to beat him.

I am not suggesting Romney would be a bad candidate for MA. I am suggesting he would be a god awful candidate for NH, PA, MN, and much of the south(though perhaps not enough to lose it). The only place  he might improve on McCain's baseline would be Colorado. He would have done far worse than McCain last year.

[tmthforu94]

Romney edge:

Montana would be solid Romney, even if it was a toss-up election.

[marvelrobbins]

I think some here are far too willing to underestimate Obama and take it for granted Romney
would be a great candiate.Social conservertives won't like It and some southern voters
would not be very excited about voting for eather a Black man or a Mormon.

Romney will do better than Mccain In nevada and Michigan If he can get the nomination but with romney's typical tax cuts for wealthy and deregulding businesses you are crazy If you think Obama will be easy to beat.

Obama's people will have field day using his flipflopping over social Issues.Going from prochoice and progayrights to Prolife Antigays.

Obama Is more popular than Clinton And Bush JR were at this point In their terms so those thinking Obama will be easy to beat are In full denial of relaity.

[Vepres]

I think some here are far too willing to underestimate Obama and take it for granted Romney
would be a great candiate.Social conservertives won't like It and some southern voters
would not be very excited about voting for eather a Black man or a Mormon.

Romney will do better than Mccain In nevada and Michigan If he can get the nomination but with romney's typical tax cuts for wealthy and deregulding businesses you are crazy If you think Obama will be easy to beat.

Obama's people will have field day using his flipflopping over social Issues.Going from prochoice and progayrights to Prolife Antigays.

Obama Is more popular than Clinton And Bush JR were at this point In their terms so those thinking Obama will be easy to beat are In full denial of relaity.

You know who else was more popular than Clinton and Bush Jr. in this point in the presidency, Carter. Yeah, those who say Carter was vulnerable that election are in denial of reality.

Oh, wait...

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

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Very true

Obama has only been president for about 5 months, what the approval ratings are currently saying will have been forgotten by 2012. His precidency might be a success, and he'll win a landslide no matter who the GOP candidate is, but it might very well turn out the other way if this administration flops, and a moderate Republican like Romney will have a great chance at being elected.

Of course it is my belief Obama will have four great years, and have a landslide next election, but you never know.

[pbrower2a]

If the auto industry is still in crisis four years from now, Romney would most likely win Michigan, Indiana and Ohio easy, if the auto industry has started to recover he'll only have a chance in Indiana.

Fair assessment. The auto industry looks as if it could have happy days again because the scrapping of old cars has outpaced the sale of new cars. If the economy improves at all, then the auto industry will rebound. The subprime lending scam stimulated consumer demand for a short time and then gutted it. The most vulnerable parts of the US economy --  high-ticket consumer durable goods -- now pay the price. It won't take so much for Obama to lose Ohio, let alone Indiana, but Michigan is going to be very difficult for any Republican to win in 2012.

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Strange things can happen, but Obama seems to have much going for him. Even should Romney lose against Obama in 2012, I predict that the regional polarization so severe in 2008 might abate appreciably in 2012.  We are going to soon see how adept a diplomat Obama is (he will probably be glad to "give" North Korea to China or Russia, and most Americans would be delighted with such a result), how effective Obama is in either stewardship of bigger government or in divesting big government of its equity in rescued firms (I prefer the latter so that the Government divests itself of potential conflicts of interest), and whether he can get troops out of Afghanistan and Iraq. Many ways exist in which Obama can establish effectiveness as President, and most signs are positive.

Incumbency is powerful, and although it is no guarantee of electoral success, Obama is still a shrewd politician extremely good at using the news media, and he can establish an electoral machine at a moment's notice. Any GOP nominee for President will try to run from the record of George W. Bush, but not with much success; if all else fails for the Democrats, the Obama re-election campaign will remind us of how awful a President Dubya was.

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Romney's cultural ties are mostly to regions that haven't voted for a GOP nominee for President since 1988. That could help him in the Primaries because if he wins a bunch of states like New York, Pennsylvania, California, and Illinois that have no chance of going Republican in 2012, the delegates from such places still count. Mike Huckabee is very much a regional candidate. Palin? She seems less suitable every week. Gingrich? Sexual morals of an alley cat, and I can imagine him being defeated in places where "family values" matter most. One such place is Utah.

I can say this of Mitt Romney: against an incumbent President, the best that he might do is to look good losing, which is far better than making a fool of oneself.

[marvelrobbins]

People seriously are trying to compare Obama to Carter?

Obama Is having to deal with crises that have been brewing from years and Clinton Is not Immune from the critism since he went along with deregulation of Businessess.

Obama and Carter are not fair comparisons.FDr Is a better comparsion or Reagan himself even
though Regan was a Conservative and Obama Is a economic and Social Liberal and a foreign Policy Moderate.

Obama will never have a 84 reagan Landslide but has to be the bet for 2012 especilly with the likely republicans candiates.

And Obama would have people ready to go after Romney just as Bush's people went after Kerry.

The Clintons,and Mccain underestimated Obama,and paid for It.

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

If the auto industry is still in crisis four years from now, Romney would most likely win Michigan, Indiana and Ohio easy, if the auto industry has started to recover he'll only have a chance in Indiana.

Fair assessment. The auto industry looks as if it could have happy days again because the scrapping of old cars has outpaced the sale of new cars. If the economy improves at all, then the auto industry will rebound. The subprime lending scam stimulated consumer demand for a short time and then gutted it. The most vulnerable parts of the US economy --  high-ticket consumer durable goods -- now pay the price. It won't take so much for Obama to lose Ohio, let alone Indiana, but Michigan is going to be very difficult for any Republican to win in 2012.

I hope you're right. You know your own state better than me. It seems though as Michigan is the state that has been hurt most by the recession and if the economy is still crappy, and the GOP candidate has strong ties to the state, like Romney does, I believe it could be very close. Not that we have to worry since the economy will most likely be better by then.
 

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Yes especially in the matter of foregin policy he's been exellent so far. 

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I think it might come down to how many moderates there will be in the primaries. If Romney is the only one of signifigance, he'll sweep all the moderate states while the über-conservatives Palin, Hukabee and possibly Jindal fights about the southern and western votes. If Guliani, Crist, or Cantor is in the race too he'll have a hard time making it though. Flip floping seems to be a death sin to republicans, and his mormonism isn't helping him either.

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Haha so true. I doubt anyone will underestimate him in 2012 though.

[5280]

Romney edge:

I fixed it a bit.  For the Romney edge, give him Colorado since you have Florida on there as a Romney lean. There's more Democrats in Florida.  New Hampshire will be tossup since Bush didn't win it in 2004.

[marvelrobbins]

Oh God! Some of you are living in fantasy land If you think Romney Is going to able to beat
Obama so easy. That would be me saying Obama could win Texas which would be me living In fantasy land.The only southern states In play for 2012 for Obama Is Florida,Virginia,NC,and
Georgia.

Why some here considering Clinton and Bush won reelection think Obama can't IS beyond me.

[Vepres]

Oh God! Some of you are living in fantasy land If you think Romney Is going to able to beat
Obama so easy. That would be me saying Obama could win Texas which would be me living In fantasy land.The only southern states In play for 2012 for Obama Is Florida,Virginia,NC,and
Georgia.

Why some here considering Clinton and Bush won reelection think Obama can't IS beyond me.

Because, no matter how politically skilled or competent a president one is, there is always the chance something will go wrong (whether it's the President's fault or not) that the President will be blamed for. We still don't know if the stimulus package, bailouts, TARP 2, GM takeover will work. Also, what happens if one of health care, cap-and-trade, or immigration reform explodes in his face. This would discredit him, in my opinion, with many of the young people who voted for him because of their idealism. They will become cynical and may vote against him, or at least with the rest of the population. Without the youth vote, Obama loses North Carolina, Florida, Indiana, Virginia, and Ohio; and Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Iowa, New Hamphshire, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota suddenly become competitive.

[pbrower2a]

People seriously are trying to compare Obama to Carter?

Some people would like to believe that Obama is the new Jimmy Carter. Carter was just too eccentric to be an effective President.

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Bill Clinton is less culpable than Dubya... but at least he presided over budget surpluses while President. If Reagan started the anti-worker trend, he at least destroyed inflation. Dubya successfully added legalized loansharking as a burden  to working people.

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It still seems blasphemous to compare Obama to Washington, Lincoln, FDR, Jefferson, Truman, or Eisenhower... Reagan was not a great President, but he was effective.

So far Obama shows the techniques of Reagan -- and they worked politically. A liberal might not like the results of Reagan's administration because of political bias,  

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Since FDR, the only President who didn't let a landslide go to his head was Dwight Eisenhower. I'd be satisfied if Obama were the New Eisenhower, but the personalities just don't match.  Does the GOP have a viable candidate for 2012?

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You go after others if you can't win on your own record -- as did Dubya.

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Hillary would have defeated John McCain because of the financial meltdown.

[CJK]

Right now Obama's approval ratings are roughly the same as GHW Bush and Carter at a similar stage, and they had even less disapproval. (The average disapproval of Carter in 1977 was 20% and for Bush in 1989 17%.)

But if I had to say right now, I doubt Romney could take any states from Obama. He was a poor candodate in the primaries which is how he lost to someone he outspent 5:1. I think Romney can make a comeback but he has to project a much different image than in 2008.

[Vepres]

Right now Obama's approval ratings are roughly the same as GHW Bush and Carter at a similar stage, and they had even less disapproval. (The average disapproval of Carter in 1977 was 20% and for Bush in 1989 17%.)

But if I had to say right now, I doubt Romney could take any states from Obama. He was a poor candodate in the primaries which is how he lost to someone he outspent 5:1. I think Romney can make a comeback but he has to project a much different image than in 2008.

At least with me he has become far more realistic sounding, intelligent, and in touch than he did during the campaign. As long as he stops pandering to the social conservatives and acts more like himself instead of the candidate he's told to be, he could win.

[aaaa2222]

I like Romney; he is a moderate, and has a firm grasp on economics and real world issues. That being said, Obama will almost definitely win re-election, seeing how W. did, with an abysmal term behind him. I truthfully hope that Romney waits 'til 2016, and takes on the Obama successor, rather than take on an incumbent, one with a personality cult and a difficult term where he could use a single accomplishment to spin is entire term in a positive manner.

[Dan the Roman]

People here are focusing too much on Obama. Nixon going into 1972 was not very popular and trailing generic democrat consistently, but won a massive landslide. Clinton, despite the revisionism from everyone from Michael Moore to Richard Scaife, was not very popular even in 1996.

Really, just as important is having a viable opposition party, and right now the Republican candidates look far more like McGovern(Palin), Mondale(Romney) or Brown(Huckabee) than like a Clinton(Huntsman). The very fact that we are discussing Palin or Romney as nominee is because most of the real top candidates are not running. Palin is the the sort of masturbation the base engages in when a judges that there is nothing to lose from a hail merry, and Romney is the sort of inoffensive non-entity that parties run when they want to lose gracefully.

Obama might be vulnerable to a Republican in 2012, but under almost no circumstances will he be vulnerable to Mitt Romney unless he is massively unpopular(sub 30% approval ratings) in which case someone much better will run.

[Vepres]

People here are focusing too much on Obama. Nixon going into 1972 was not very popular and trailing generic democrat consistently, but won a massive landslide. Clinton, despite the revisionism from everyone from Michael Moore to Richard Scaife, was not very popular even in 1996.

Really, just as important is having a viable opposition party, and right now the Republican candidates look far more like McGovern(Palin), Mondale(Romney) or Brown(Huckabee) than like a Clinton(Huntsman). The very fact that we are discussing Palin or Romney as nominee is because most of the real top candidates are not running. Palin is the the sort of masturbation the base engages in when a judges that there is nothing to lose from a hail merry, and Romney is the sort of inoffensive non-entity that parties run when they want to lose gracefully.

Obama might be vulnerable to a Republican in 2012, but under almost no circumstances will he be vulnerable to Mitt Romney unless he is massively unpopular(sub 30% approval ratings) in which case someone much better will run.

I think Romney is much stronger than people think, especially after all the news appearances and such that he has made during the financial crisis. I think he ran a bad campaign in 2008, and only did as well as he did because of the money advantage. If he stopped pandering to the religious right and ran as the guy who was elected governor in Massachusetts, he could win. I actually think he is a lot like Huntsmen, just he was told to pander, so he did. Similar attempts at pandering have doomed candidates in the past. I think people underestimate Romney.