Re: “Obama is nowhere near as popular as he was in 2008, but he is going to hold Florida and likely Ohio and that spells trouble for team Romney. Romney will likely regain Virginia and North Carolina for the Republicans but not having Florida and Ohio means he is going to have to pull off a miracle win in Wisconsin and New Hampshire and Maine all 3 are in play for him.”
That too will be tough. According to realclearpolitics.com average of polls, here is the present situation in those three states you named, my favorite headache:
Maine +15.4 Obama, not in play by any definition
New Hampshire +3.5 average for Obama, last poll in August +6 Obama
Wisconsin +1.4 Obama, Ryan selection brought it up to a Romney advantage but last two polls back to Obama lead
Maine, like Nebraska, split their electoral votes by congressional district.
There are only two congressional districts in Maine. It’s possible that Romney could win the 2nd district, which is the northern half of Maine. Plenty of libs in southern Maine, the 1st congressional district.....it’s close to Massachusetts.
The winner of each district gets one electoral vote. The statewide winner of the popular vote gets two more. In this scenario, if Obama wins southern Maine and Romney wins northern Maine, and Obama wins the statewide popular vote, Obama would get 3 electoral votes and Romney would get one.
On a ten mile stretch of two-lane road in my area (in the 2nd district) the other day, I counted 25 Romney signs and just 3 Obama signs. So you never know.