Why is Ohio so important in this presidential election?
The short answer is, for Mitt Romney to win without Ohio’s
18 electoral votes he will have to outperform poll expectations in several
other states where his support is weaker than it is in Ohio.
Thinking about it from President Obama’s perspective, if he can win in
Ohio it will be very difficult for Romney to cobble together the 270 electoral
votes that are needed to win the election.
Here’s the Electoral College math, as I see it.
Obama has a lock on 237 electoral votes; Romney has a lock
on 191.[i]
It is this base advantage for Obama that makes the presidency more of an uphill
battle for Romney which, in turn, magnifies the importance of Ohio.
Obama’s 237 “lock” votes include the obvious states
(California, New York, Rhode Island, Hawaii, etc.) along with slightly less
certain states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Minnesota and New Mexico. Romney’s
191 “lock” votes include the obvious (Texas, Georgia, Alabama, Idaho, etc.)
along with slightly less certain states like Missouri, Indiana and Arizona.
That leaves Florida, Virginia, North Carolina, New
Hampshire, Iowa, Wisconsin, Colorado, Nevada and – of course – Ohio in play.
Polls suggest that the reddest of the nine states “in play”
is North Carolina. In three other states – Florida, Virginia and Colorado –
polls suggest Romney has an advantage or trails by a very narrow margin.
It is virtually impossible for Romney to win without those
four states, so let’s assume he will. That would give Romney 257 electoral votes,
13 short of the 270 he needs to win. Ohio’s 18 votes would put him over the top
and make him the 45th President of the United States.
That scenario – North Carolina, Florida, Virginia, Colorado
and Ohio – is the clearest and most likely path to victory for Romney.
The problem for Romney is; that’s pretty much his only plausible
route to victory, based on the current polls.
Now, of course - mathematically speaking - there are several
other scenarios that could result in a Romney victory. However, all of those scenarios
require election results that are substantially different than polls suggest
they will be. Without Ohio Romney would need to outperform the polls in a
half-dozen states to win.
For instance, let’s assume Romney wins in North Carolina,
Florida, Virginia and Colorado. If that happened and Obama won in Ohio (where
he leads in the polls) Obama would have 255 electoral votes to Romney’s 257.
However, polls in all of the remaining states I’ve not yet accounted for –
Wisconsin (10), Nevada (6), Iowa (6) and New Hampshire (4) – have consistently
tilted toward Obama. To win the election Romney would need to win Wisconsin and
one of the other three. Without Wisconsin, where Romney has never led in the
polls, he would need to win all three of the other states.
The alternative scenarios are certainly not impossible, but
clearly a lot of things need to go Romney’s way for him to come out ahead on
election day without Ohio.
The electoral math for Obama is much more flexible, with
several plausible paths to victory.
If, for instance, Obama wins Florida and Ohio he will have 284
electoral votes and will win the presidency, even if Romney wins the other
seven tossup states.
However, Obama also has a plausible path to victory without either
Ohio or Florida. If Romney won those two states plus North Carolina and
Colorado he would have 262 electoral votes. If Obama won Virginia – a virtual
dead heat in the polls – he would have 250 electoral votes and the four
remaining tossup states – Wisconsin, Nevada, Iowa and New Hampshire – all lean
toward Obama in the polls.
Yet another scenario that demonstrates the uphill battle
Romney faces is one where he wins Florida, Ohio, North Carolina and Virginia
yet still remains four votes short of victory.
In that scenario Obama would need a victory in Colorado,
where the polls suggest voters are tilting slightly in Romney’s favor; plus
Wisconsin, Nevada, Iowa and New Hampshire.
There is one scenario where Romney has a clear advantage; an
Electoral College tie of 269 to 269.
A tie is a real possibility. For instance, a scenario where
Obama wins Ohio, Wisconsin and New Hampshire and Romney wins the other six
tossups results in a 269 to 269 tie. There are several other very realistic
possibilities that result in a tie.
If there is a tie the 12th Amendment to the
Constitution specifies that each state delegation in the U.S. House of
Representatives votes among themselves to determine how they will cast a single
vote for one of the two candidates. There is some wiggle room for debate about
whether this vote could be taken by the current (lame duck) House of Representatives. However, Constitutional
scholars appear to lean toward the position that the vote is the responsibility
for the newly-elected House that will take office on Jan. 6, 2012.
There are no guidelines on how the state delegation votes
are to be conducted and no restrictions on how many votes the House can be take.
It seems likely that a majority of the state
delegations in the next House of Representatives will have a Republican
majority. Thus, in all likelihood, Romney could get the 26 state delegation
votes required to elect him president.
Obama’s chances of getting 26 state delegation votes in the
next House of Representatives would appear to be virtually non-existent.
Republicans appear to have a lock on majorities in 22 state
delegations; Alabama, Arkansas, Alaska, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas,
Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Carolina, Oklahoma,
South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia
and Wyoming.
The delegations in Florida, Ohio, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania
currently favor Republicans and are expected to remain that way after the
election.
Democrats appear to have a lock on majorities in only 13 state
congressional delegations; California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois,
Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Washington and
Vermont.
Thus for Obama to get 26 votes among the House delegations would
require not only the highly unlikely scenarios involving unexpected turnover in
Florida, Ohio, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania; it would also require
Republican-to-Democrat turnover in states like New Hampshire and North Dakota
that are only slightly more probable.
The bottom line is that, if there is an Electoral College
tie, Romney would probably get the 26 votes needed for victory and Obama almost
certainly would not.
Thus, in the event of an Electoral College tie it appears
that the best outcome that Democrats could plausibly hope for is that Romney
would fall short of the 26 votes needed to win in the House.
If a state delegation is evenly divided it cannot cast a
vote, but 26 votes are required to elect the president. Thus while Romney would
almost certainly get a plurality of the state delegation votes it’s possible
that he might fall short of the absolute majority of 26 that is required for
the House to elect him president.
In that scenario, where the House has not determined a
winner by inauguration day (Jan. 20, 2013) the 20th Amendment
specifies that the vice-president (if there is one) serves as president
until the House is able to select a president.
Guess who gets to choose the vice-president? The U.S.
Senate, which now appears likely to retain its Democratic majority after the
election. Even if the new Senate was evenly split 50-50 Joe Biden would still
be the vice-president on Jan. 6 because his term in office does not end until the
inauguration on Jan. 20. Thus, Biden would be able to break a 50-50 deadlock by
voting for himself.
Therefore, if there is a 269-269 electoral college tie, Joe Biden
would probably end up serving four more years as the vice-president in the
administration of President Mitt Romney.
However, if the House was unable to produce the 26 votes
needed to elect Romney president then Biden could end up serving as acting
president, perhaps until an elected president takes office in 2017.
In the unlikely event that Romney did not get 26 votes in
the House and the Senate was unable to produce 51 votes for either Biden or Paul
Ryan, there would be no president-elect or vice-president-elect to take office
on Jan. 20. If that happened the Speaker of the House would become the acting
president. Presumably that would be John Boehner who is, coincidentally, from
Ohio.
[i]
Obviously the term “a lock” is subjective and it’s based on polls and polls
aren’t elections. I acknowledge that. Furthermore, as the polling after the
first debate has indicated, this is far from being a settled matter, even
though most of us have already made up our minds and are simply waiting for
election day.
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