Paul Maslin, a respected Democratic pollster who worked for Howard Dean in 2004 and New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson’s presidential campaign in 2008, posts this thoughtful analysis about how Barack Obama gets the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House in November. Maslin’s analysis relies less on current polling than past voter trends and his own instincts. I agree with many of his conclusions. First, he argues that about 17 states fall outside of the red or blue “mortal lock.” Maslin believes Obama begins with a base of 157 electoral votes from 11 states and DC. Of the 17 swing states, six are “must win” according to his analysis (electoral votes in parentheses): Michigan (17), Minnesota (10), New Jersey (15), Oregon (7), Pennsylvania (21) and Washington (11). A few of these states, however, are clearly problematic for Obama versus John McCain. The Illinois Senator is going to have to do better with white, working class voters in Michigan and Pennsylvania in order to keep them in the Democratic column. Maslin notes, and I agree, that Pennsylvania is a tougher environment than Michigan. That’s why I also agree with Fred Barnes that Ed Rendell is a strong name to put on the ticket as vice president. If Obama prevails in the six “must-win,” he’s up to 238 electoral votes. The next 32 become even tougher. Two southern states top Maslin’s list of possibilities: Virginia (13) and North Carolina (15). But if Obama wins those two states, he’ll likely top 300 electoral votes in my opinion. Maslin agrees that winning these two southern states is a big challenge. If Obama picks Virginia Senator Jim Webb as his running mate, that might help. But Obama may also need to pick a VP from Pennsylvania or Ohio to lock down those states. Too bad he can’t have multiple running mates. Moving west of the Mississippi, Colorado (9), Nevada (5) New Mexico (5), Iowa (7) and Missouri (11) are also in play. Finally, Florida (27), Ohio (20), New Hampshire (4) and Wisconsin (10) are also all on Maslin’s swing list. The permutations at this point are endless. Maslin believes Obama’s best hope is to spread McCain’s financial resources so thin he can’t effectively compete in a high number of swing states. We’ll see. This is where the combined money raising ability of the RNC along with the McCain campaign may make the financial disparity with Obama look less daunting later this year.
