FIGHTING COUNTY BY COUNTY
WESTERVILLE, Ohio — U.S. President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are plunging into the final nine days of a multibillion-dollar presidential race focused not only on the seven most competitive states, but also on battleground counties within them that could tip the balance of an exceedingly close contest.
They include the suburbs here in Franklin County, Ohio, where many young married women turned to Obama in 2008 out of frustration with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan but could turn against him now for perceived failures on his campaign promises and a slow-to-recover economy.
In Colorado, the contested territory is Arapahoe County, where Romney’s campaign is courting Hispanic business owners who are frustrated with the national healthcare law. It is Hillsborough County in Florida, where both sides agree that whoever wins the independent voters is likely to be president.
At this late stage of the race, the fight for the White House is being waged on intensely local terrain, in places whose voting histories and demographics have been studied in minute detail by both sides. Obama is intent on replicating an electorate that swept him into office four years ago and is heavily dependent on younger, female and minority voters. Romney is relying on an older, whiter and more conservative voting group, along the lines of the ones that turned out in 2004 and 2010.
The Romney campaign, worried about its options in the seven top battleground states, opened a fund-raising drive on Saturday to try to expand the playing field into Pennsylvania and Minnesota, two states that Obama has considered safe. Romney is also making a deeper push this week into Wisconsin, which he will visit for the first time in two months.
“The switch that went on after that first debate is still on,” said Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, a Republican. “I still think people
are undecided, they are still listening.”
Obama loyalists are wondering whether the campaign organization, with its focus on the mechanics of getting its voters to the polls, was built to withstand late decisions by voters to give Romney another look. The president flew to New Hampshire on Saturday — the last day to register to vote by mail — to protect the state’s four electoral votes in hopes of avoiding a narrow loss or an Electoral College tie.
Obama now has a solid lead in states that account for 185 electoral votes, and he is well positioned in states representing 58 more, for a total of 243, according to a ranking of states by The New York Times, based on polls and interviews with strategists in both campaigns.
Romney has solid leads in states with 180 electoral votes and is well positioned in states with 26 more, according to the Times rating, for a total of 206. It takes 270 electoral votes to win the presidency.
In the closing days of the race, seven states representing 89 electoral votes — Colorado, Florida, Iowa, New Hampshire, Ohio, Virginia and Wisconsin — are now considered tossups. Here is a look at their dynamics and the potential path for each candidate.
FLORIDA
Romney’s swing through Florida on Saturday — the first day of in-person early voting there — included a visit to a Republican county in the Panhandle where he wants to pump up his vote count (Escambia) and where a huge crowd met him with chants of “10 more days,” a Democratic county where he wants to cut into Obama’s expected lead (Osceola), and a swing county (Pasco). For good reason. Romney cannot afford to leave any base untouched. If he loses Florida, his chances of winning the presidency depend on sweeping nine other states, including Ohio and Nevada.
Florida has been considered challenging territory for Obama all year. Even when polls have shown him ahead, both campaigns have expressed skepticism that the edge would hold. But at Obama’s headquarters in Chicago, his aides said in interviews last week that they believed they had at least a 50 percent shot in Florida, based on mail-in ballots, voter registrations and polling. A new wave of Puerto Rican voters in Central Florida is highly influential, Democrats say, along with younger CubanAmericans in South Florida.
NEW HAMPSHIRE
On Obama’s trip to Nashua, N.H., Saturday with the singer James Taylor in tow, he wooed a state that revels in its reputation for unpredictability.
Obama won every county there in 2008, a feat that even Bill Clinton did not pull off in 1992 and 1996. But Obama’s sometimes comfortable lead in polls has dwindled.
Romney’s aides have been somewhat optimistic about his chances in the state. He was the governor in Massachusetts next door, and he vacations there. His lakeside home in Wolfeboro is in Car- roll County, which he will need to win.
He and his campaign have plied the state’s two traditionally Republican-leaning counties in southern New Hampshire — Rockingham and Hillsborough — with attention since he announced his run for the presidency (in the Rockingham town of Stratham). His assertions that Obama has allowed the budget deficit and national debt to get out of control speaks to the state’s long tradition of thrift.
COLORADO
There is a potential outcome that has tantalized political addicts everywhere: that Colorado will become the new Florida, the state that decides it all.
For it to come to that, Romney must win four of the most competitive states — New Hampshire, Virginia, Florida and Wisconsin — leaving Obama with Ohio and Iowa. That would give Romney 262 Electoral College votes to Obama’s 267, leaving both in need of Colorado’s 9. In 2008, Obama became the first Democrat to win the state in 16 years by stealing the counties north and south of Boulder — Jefferson and Larimer — and Arapahoe County near Denver and by shaving down the Republican margin in conservative areas like Colorado Springs.
A Wall Street Journal/NBC News/Marist College poll released on Thursday showed Obama and Romney to be tied among likely voters.
IOWA
No state among the battlegrounds is more sentimental and symbolic to Obama. Iowa christened his presidential candidacy in 2008; his victory in the caucuses there helped pave the way to his winning the Democratic nomination.
Iowa’s unemployment rate is significantly lower than the national average, but Obama has campaigned in the state as if his candidacy depended upon it. And perhaps it does.
Romney is looking for backup options if the battleground map does not tilt his way. And the six electoral votes in Iowa could be a critical piece to that puzzle.
OHIO
Romney spent four of the last five days in the state trying to break through with middle-class voters, making the case that the recovery under Obama has been inadequate. With 18 electoral votes at stake, both candidates are treating the state as if they were running for governor.
To win, Romney needs added strength in rural and suburban areas, where Obama drew more support in 2008 than did previous Democratic candidates. On Sunday night, Romney was to hold a rally at the fairgrounds in Marion, a Republican-leaning county, where he needs the margin of victory to return to the levels seen in 2004.
VIRGINIA
Virginia is vital to almost every one of Romney’s paths to the White House if he does not win Ohio, which explains why he has spent so much time visiting the state, including what were to be three rallies on Sunday before they were canceled because of Hurricane Sandy.
Romney has focused much of his effort in areas like those around Norfolk, heavily populated with military personnel, where he asserts that Obama has allowed the Navy to wither, and in coal-mining country in the south, where he portrays Obama as hostile to the industry and quick to impose costly regulations on business.
A run of polls in the late summer showed Obama to be on his way to establishing a real advantage, but in recent weeks the race has fallen into an effective tie. Romney’s improving standing among undecided women after the debates — which he stoked with an advertisement that sought to soften his stance against abortion — made Obama’s aides especially nervous.
WISCONSIN
The 2008 presidential election, when Obama carried the state by 14 percentage points, is a distant memory. The electorate is far more polarized this year, particularly after the contentious recall attempt of Walker in June, which failed.
The organization that Walker put together to fend off the recall effort by labor unions is the muscle behind Romney’s on-the-ground operation. In an interview last week, he said, “We set the stage for the Romney campaign before the Romney campaign was fully engaged.”
Another factor is the pride that comes from a native son, Rep. Paul Ryan, on the ticket. His hometown, Janesville, is a strong Democratic-leaning city, so any votes he wins from there could help the Republican margins in a race that both sides agree seems more like 2000 and 2004, when George W. Bush lost by only a sliver.