Romney’s path is more difficult. His smaller base of 191 electoral votes includes states that the president lost in 2008 plus Indiana, where polls show Romney is favored to defeat Obama four years after the president carried the state by 1 percentage point.
Republicans need to win 72 percent of the electoral votes in the nine targeted states, which would require victories in five to eight of them. Florida and Ohio are the biggest prizes; it’s been 88 years since a Republican was elected president without winning Florida, and no Republican has ever won without Ohio.
Romney and his allies have signaled through advertising that they aren’t going to compete seriously in Michigan and Pennsylvania, which together have 36 electoral votes and last voted Republican for president in 1988.
While Romney campaigned Aug. 24 in Michigan, his birth state, he hasn’t aired a single general-election TV ad there or in Pennsylvania, CMAG data show.
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