you take you go to ohio here and that still leaves romney short. so that, to me, is the importance here of virginia, ohio, and probably if you will the collective west. our poll showed a surprisingly tight race in colorado when you look at some of the hispanic numbers there, the assumption is the demographically the state is growing away from the regimes. the question is what does it look like december? economically there are a lot of folks who think because of the housing issue combined with the unemployment rate that that is a romney state. at the end of the day if we start squaring this. look at this cog here of virginia though and ohio. the bottom line here is when you look at here it needs to be solid red from ohio all the way down to florida if romney has a shot at this thing. he does have to almost run the table. he can afford some losses in the west. he can t afford any losses here in the eastern seaboard or the industrial midwest. all right.
exactly 270. or romney can go back to his midwestern roots and try to take his former home state of michigan, pennsylvania, or probably a state that gets targeted more likely a wisconsin. romney could also go west and try to collect votes in colorado, nevada, or new mexico. finally, romney can try to win through the heartland and take iowa where of course our latest polls show a dead heat. any of these states would get romney to 270 or more. it all seems easy enough. right? but the problem is this. let s go ahead and say, fine on iowa. and give him that one. gets him to 272. the real problem he s got, though, has to do with the places of virginia and ohio right now. these are two states that both campaigns believe president obama is narrowly ahead. colorado and north carolina, excuse me, florida, north carolina, are states that right now there is this concession that somehow possibly romney s ahead. so that s the problem he faces here. is there a path so you go to
good to see you. i want to start with what i think a lot of folks watching this race from the outside of wisconsin. they see this marquette law school. i think this has been one of the better polls. they work hard to get this right. scott walker 52. the same poll has the president up, 51-43. what it means, senator feingold, is there are some people who support the president, you would think possibly democratic leaning voters who are also supporting scott walk inner this recall. we re told this was the most polarized state in the union yet there is clearly a swing voter here who is both supporting a democratic president s re-election and a republican governor to stay in office. how do you explain that? well, there is a reason marquette law school professor as a recent marquette law school professor i am loathe to criticize their poll. a couple things are happening. the president is going to win
one one of the most polarized states in america. former wisconsin senator russ feingold joins us on the badger state blues. plus, countdown to victory. the three, two, one strategy pushed by the romney campaign and karl rove may sound like a plan that doesn t fly. we ll break it down in our deep dive. good morning from washington. it is thursday, may 31st, 2012. this is the daily rundown. i m chuck todd. good stew for you today. my first reads of the morning for now the presidential campaign is being waged if you will on republican turf. six critical battleground states obama carried in 2008 but george w. bush won in 2004. five of the six actually are ones that bush won in 2000. last week we had polls showing the president with small leads in three of those states ohio, florida, and virginia. now a new nbc/marist poll showed the race even closer in states like iowa, colorado, nevada where it is a virtual tie. in nevada the president leads mitt romney among registered
43 saying, glad it s not my problem. right. they tried very hard to work assad over the years, both bushes. let s remember. it s a nice moment but it s just a moment because tomorrow the obama campaign wakes up and it continues the message of do you really want to go back to that guy and it s not going go away. shameless plug. mr. zeleny, i ll let grow first. i m looking forward to my colleague with the book on obama. obama s wars basically. a follow-up to his book on bush. good stuff. i want to hail the great work my colleagues are doing on rick scott in florida punching all those voters from the voter rolls. they re doing great work. i m going to take a look at that story. a great piece in this morning s washington post about romney s record on judges in massachusetts, really good insight into his instincts, which were to sort of depo lit