Presidential Polls 2012 - Swing States: Romney Up In Florida, Obama Up in Ohio, What Are Romney's Options?

Two big swing states are moving in opposite directions in the last weeks of the presidential race.

Florida, the notorious foil in the 2000 presidential election, was a solid tossup until the first presidential debate.

Republican challenger Mitt Romney finally began moving polls in his direction after winning his first showdown with President Obama, and two news polls add to his lead there.

A Sunshine State News/VSS poll released on Friday shows Romney up 5 points over Obama, 51 percent to 46 percent.

And a Rasmussen poll released the same day gives Romney a 2-point advantage over the president, 50 percent to 48 percent.

While Obama has strong Latino support in Florida, it is not as strong as in other areas of the country. The large Cuban-American population tends to be more conservative than the Puerto Ricans, Central and South Americans, and other Latinos of Caribbean descent that make up the rest of the state's Hispanic population.

Florida's popular Cuban-American Senator Marco Rubio also stumps for Romney and introduced him at the Republican National Convention in August.

While these polls are good news for Romney, he can't afford to lose out on Florida's 29 electoral votes if he wants to get anywhere near the 270 votes required to win the presidency.

Obama, on the other hand, is in a much better position in the Electoral College.

After Florida, the swing state with the largest pot of electoral votes is Pennsylvania, with 20. Obama has polled well there consistently, and I expect the state will be called for him soon.

But it is Ohio's 18 electoral votes that both candidates are eyeing. Several projections of Electoral College outcomes put Obama just 17 votes shy of winning outright, without accounting for well-contested swing states.

Just taking Ohio would put him over the top.

And three new polls released on Friday show him maintaining his lead there.

In a CNN/ORC poll, Obama leads Romney by 4 points in Ohio, 50 percent to 46 percent.

An ARG poll gives Obama a 2-point lead, 49 percent to 47 percent.

And a Purple Strategies poll has Obama up by 2 points, 46 percent to 44 percent.

If Obama takes Ohio, there are few paths left for Romney to win. He would need to take Iowa, Nevada and Colorado to keep Obama away from 270 votes.

But Obama is polling ahead in both Nevada and Iowa.

And even if Romney does succeed in all three states, he'll need to take New Hampshire to prevent a tie in the Electoral College, 269 votes apiece.

Of course, if Romney can force a tie, the House of Representatives elects the president, a vote Romney would likely win. But the Senate elects the Vice President, so Romney might have to contend with a belligerent Joe Biden nipping at his heel for four years.

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