Romney Increases Lead in White House 2012 Electoral College Projection

    In what is now a verifiable trend, White House 2012’s newest Electoral College projection has increased the size of Mitt Romney’s lead in the Electoral College over President Obama for the third time in a row.  In the previous projection, after forecasting Ohio for Romney for the first time, New Hampshire and Nevada where switched from Romney to Obama.  This latest forecast now places both of those states back in Mitt Romney’s column, increasing Romney’s lead in the Electoral College by a combined total of 10 electors.  This now puts Romney’s Electoral College count at 291 to the President’s 247.

According to the White House 2012 formula, Nevada and New Hampshire are still very competitive and not solidly in Romney’s camp.  The same goes for Iowa and Ohio where WH12 considers the Romney-Ryan ticket to be currently holding a slim but still growing lead. But the most significant development in the latest forecast model is that the apparent bounce Romney received in the wake of his first debate, is now proving to be a definite trend.  More importantly, it is a trend that is revealing itself to be so pronounced that it has forced White House 2012 to now add three more states to our battleground map… Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

That is a dramatic development. Especially in the case of Pennsylvania.

Pennsylvania is to Barack Obama what Ohio is to Mitt Romney.  Without Pennsylvania solidly in the Obama-Biden column, the Democrat ticket finds itself with significantly fewer paths to victory in the Electoral College.  This is a switch from the narrative that had defined Romney’s need to win Ohio.  No Republican has ever won the White House without it.   If Romney can’t win Ohio, he will find significantly fewer ways to accumulate the 270 electors needed to win.  White House 2012 has however stipulated that we are sure Romney can win without Ohio and in fact originally projected him to do so.  But recently polling and other factors have now turned the tables and are forcing the President to have to focus us on his m.

While White House 2012 still projects Pennsylvania to go for the President, if current trends continue, that can quickly change.  In the meantime White House 2012 is forced to now make Pennsylvania a battleground state and in what is turning out to be continued trend that is putting the President’s campaign in a more defensive posture when it comes to the electoral map, White House 2012 has also moved Wisconsin and Michigan to battleground status.

Of these three new battlegrounds, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are most profound.

Without them, President Obama must win Ohio and various combinations of other states that include such states as Florida, Virginia, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, and/or Colorado.

While many factors will continue to change future projections, the analysis behind this forecast is most notable for the conclusion that at the moment, the Romney-Ryan ticket is turning the tables in the Electoral College and forcing the Obama-Biden ticket to take a more defensive electoral strategy.  It is forcing the Obama campaign to spend time and much needed resources and money in state’s that at this point in time, they had hoped were in the bag.  Meanwhile, the need to reinforce his standing in places like Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and even Michigan, is taking time and money away from President Obama’s ability to work on winning other important states like Ohio, Florida, Virginia, New Hampshire, Nevada, Iowa, and Colorado.