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They include the suburbs here in Franklin County, Ohio, where many young
married women turned to Mr. 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 Mr.
Romney’s campaign is courting Hispanic business owners who are
frustrated with the national health care 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. Mr. 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. Mr. 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 Mr. Obama has considered safe. Mr. 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 Mr. 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.
The biggest fear for Mr. Obama’s team is that a large number of voters
suddenly will get so fed up with the back-and-forth of the campaign, the
economic outlook and the partisan rancor that they break for Mr.
Romney, if only to try something new in Washington.
The biggest fear for Mr. Romney’s campaign is that he is coasting on a
wave of enthusiasm rather than building upon it. Or in the words of one
top campaign adviser: “Did we peak too soon?”
Mr. 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.
Mr. 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
Mr. 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 Mr. Obama’s expected lead (Osceola),
and a swing county (Pasco).
For good reason.
Mr. 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 Mr. Obama all
year. Even when polls have shown him ahead, both campaigns have
expressed skepticism that the edge would hold.
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