Romney on the Verge of Drowning

One wonders what is working right in Mitt Romney’s campaign, which is to politics what the Great Retreat [of Russia] is to military conquest. A Republican convention in Tampa just at the start of hurricane season, a mediocre speech that gave him no rebound in the polls, the case of his 14 percent income tax return, comments off the mark after the assassination of the U.S. Ambassador to Libya, etc. One could fill a phone book with errors, blunders and missteps by the unfortunate Romney.

Now the latest polls bring another blow to his morale.

Barack Obama is now forging a road to the White House that Mitt Romney had hoped to take. In recent days, polls have started to solidify in Ohio, state of the very conservative (and tan) Republican leader of the House of Representatives, John Boehner. In this state, which brings 18 electoral votes, 44th [Obama] likely has 52 percent of the vote, against Romney’s 44 percent. Fifty-six percent of voters have a positive view of Obama; 53 percent are very satisfied with his economic plan, in a state where the unemployment rate is 7.2 percent — below the national average.

Florida, with 29 votes, is about to enter itself firmly in the president’s column: 51 percent for Obama, 47 percent for Romney. Republican strategists dispute that the race is decided, but negative numbers for the GOP have checked in more than a dozen surveys. The hardest thing for Romney is that even those who say they are disappointed by Obama are more likely to want his re-election. The challenge for Romney is twofold: to convince the undecided, if they still exist, and bring to him those who, in recent weeks, have toyed with the idea of a second term for Obama.

In the two states, a majority of voters feel that Romney is not interested in their problems. And even with the question “Who is qualified to turn the economy around?” Romney collects more negative opinions than positive ones. One month after the Republican convention, more than half of voters have a negative opinion of Republicans — a record in the state where Jeb Bush was governor, and which gave the victory to his brother in 2000. Various opinion polls show that in Florida, Obama has a margin of 22 votes among female voters, while Romney has a margin of only three small votes among male voters.

To win, Romney must pass in Florida, Ohio and Virginia, where Obama has a lead that seems insurmountable for Romney. Even if Obama lost just one of these three states, the Republican candidate would be hard-pressed to win it in 40 days.