President 2012: The Key Battleground States for the 2012 Presidential Race

First Read over at NBC with today’s Obama re-election announcement has their picks for the key 2012 Presidential battleground states.

With Obama announcing his re-election today, here is our revised NBC Political Unit Battleground map for the 2012 election. It shows Democrats with 232 electoral votes either in the solid, likely, or lean column, and it has Republicans with 191 electoral votes. There are 115 electoral votes in the Toss-up column. A few states to keep an eye on THIS year when it comes to the Obama campaign: AZ, GA, and TX. All three are long shots, but all three showed significant population gains for minorities in the last 10 years. And the campaign is going to attempt to at least experiment with organizing in these three states to see if any of them are worth truly battling for when the calendar turns from 2011 to 2012.

• Solid Dem: DC, DE, HI, MD, MA, NY, RI, VT (67 electoral votes)
• Likely Dem: CA, CT, IL, ME, WA, OR (105)
• Lean Dem: MI, MN, NJ, PA (60)
• Toss-up: CO, FL, IA, NV, NH, NM, NC, OH, VA, WI (115)
• Lean GOP: AZ, GA, MO, MT, NE (one EV) (41)
• Likely GOP: AL, AR, IN, LA, MS, NE (four EVs), ND, SC, SD, TX (97)
• Solid GOP: AK, ID, KS, KY, OK, TN, UT, WV, WY (53)

Well, I did the math and the analysis some time ago and here are my picks:

I think we can say that from this poll that these states:

• Ohio – 20 (electoral votes): -2 after reapportionment
• Virginia – 13
• Colorado – 9
• Florida -27: +2 after reapportionment
• Nevada – 5: +1 after reapportionment
• Wisconsin -10
• New Hampshire – 4
• Indiana – 11
• North Carolina – 15

and add in Pennyslvania -20: -1 after reapportionment – will be in the competitive range, if the GOP nominates the RIGHT candidate.

If all of the key battleground states listed above were to flip to the Republican candidate a total of 135 electoral votes would shift. The GOP candidate would win 305 Electoral votes Vs. 230 for Obama (provided Obama wins all of the states he won in 2008). 270 votes are needed to win.

So, we are pretty much in agreement except for perhaps Iowa and New Mexico, which I see going for Obama. Now that we have settled conventional wisdom on where the race will happen, will Republican voters choose a candidate who can compete with President Obama in these states?