Romney Handicap Update

PPP's new Ohio poll shows Obama with a -9 favorability, but Romney only managing a draw against him. Now, admittedly they think the undecideds would break decisively against Obama, but that's still a 9-point Romney handicap (obviously all the others give a bigger handicap, and I am not buying Herman Cain running only three points worse than Romney). Admittedly Romney's handicap in Ohio was 11 points in their last survey, so this isn't evidence that the handicap is increasing, but it also doesn't seem to contradict the idea that it's higher than the 5-6% range it looks like on average.

Here's a map of the Romney handicaps to date. Darker blue is a bigger handicap that Romney's giving to Obama, purple is a smaller handicap, and as the purple begins to turn slightly into reddish-pink the Romney handicap is negative:

In general I feel like Romney's strengths are not well-aligned with swing states. His relative strength in parts of New England (CT/NH/ME) could theoretically win him some states, though not big ones, and he's almost strong in Pennsylvania and Michigan, which is troubling. Other than that, the places he's strong are Georgia, South Carolina, Arizona, Utah, and South Dakota, none of which Obama is really planning on winning, and New Mexico, which, uh, Romney ain't winning. Not after Perry's pushed him this far right on immigration. Meanwhile some of his worst states are North Carolina, Colorado, Iowa, Wisconsin. These are states the Republicans will need to be winning. I continue to have this hunch that Romney's weaker than he appears.

Also, the debate and post-debate window do not appear to have been great for Romney. I'm still not convinced he wins the nomination.