According to exit polls, whites swung heavily towards Romney. It was in fact the only statewide race in CO this decade in which the Republican won the white female vote, which went solidly for Romney 53/46. I remember reading here on Atlas that college educated whites carried Obama to victory in CO in 2008, but Hispanics in 2012.
CO, NV & VA would have been the first states to flip to Romney based on improved performance among Latinos alone, and all of them would have flipped at roughly the same point (i.e. if Romney had won around 45% of the national Latino vote). Ultimately, Romney won 27% nationally and 23% in CO.
The only state in 2012 where Latinos made any difference in the EV outcome (within the parameters of possible Latino turnout & support) was FL - and even there, it was mostly due to a quirk in Cuban voting patterns. One of the biggest misconceptions about the overall outcome of the 2012 presidential election is that Latinos had any influence on it.
The simple fact for the matter is that Romney was boxed in on too many fronts. The one area where the donors and the consultant class were willing to give him free range to manuerve and grow, he was horribly ill suited to do so because of not only the path and process he used to become the nominee but also because of all his other positions. This represents the great cognitive dissonance on the part of GOP donors, think tanks and the like that all they have to do is be the ones crowned with the victory of legalizing them and they will be rewarded with endless votes for the Paul Ryan agenda. It is that very agenda that will just as quickly induce them to vote Democratic.
Romney went too far to the right on social issues to win enough college educated whites in the suburbs. He had gone too fiscally conservative during the recession and thus hurt his chances in the Midwest (Let Detroit Go Bankrupt) and he had embraced Paul Ryan, hurting him across the board in all states, but especially Florida and the Midwest.
Had Romney not been constrained by his donors and consultants, as well as the primary factions, he would have probably tried to expand among what we now call non-college whites. Romney could have thus won with a slightly more traditional map with slightly fewer non-college whites than Trump got but way more college educated whites than Trump managed to get.
Too me Romney's potential is like that of a fish too big to bring on board the boat, so you tie it to the side and drag it in only to find it has been picked clean.
