If Obama has to win re-election I'd love for that to be the final popular vote split. Would completely shut down that stupid national popular vote interstate compact idea and all of this bogus concern from liberals over the Electoral College. If Obama won the election but lost the popular vote our heads will spin over how quickly the lefties suddenly start trumpeting the virtues of the EC and the vision of the Founders.

That said, I think thet projection is probably wrong given the numbers - I'd guess that New Hampshire will flip back to red, which would reverse the outcome - Romeny 270 to 268.

Consumer confidence is good, but we'll see if it sustains over the next couple of months. January jobs numbers will be a good test of this - the preliminary figures should be out at the end of the week. But looking out - this could be an interesting year - and the idea that there won't be another dip is simply foolish. While traditionally you'd be correct and I would agree that a reversal is unlikely between now and summer (when perceptions set in), the precarious situation in Europe is a wild card. If Europe dips into recession (seems to be likely) as a result of the sovereign debt issues in the eurozone, that will impact us greatly as Europe remains one of our major export destinations - if demand over there drops that could strangle any burgeoning recovery over here. While the numbers might not drop signficantly (I don't think we'll go back into recession), a clear slowdown could dirve uncertainty back up and cause a more pessimistic public perception of the economic situation. Which would not be good for the president.

Approval rating I will dismiss for now - the tracking is clearly going to show a bounce from the SOTU - it's a dramatic presentation, and even if the contents are mostly the same as every SOTU for the last 30 years, it still makes some fence-sitters feel good about the president. Fair enough - it is unchallenged good press (nobody pays much attention to the opposition's response). The question will be whether any of it is sustained after another couple of weeks.

Wisconsin is really interesting. He projects that the GOP will gain the Senate seat (despite assuming no set nominees on either side), but that Obama will win by over 6 points. That seems unlikely where the presidential race is assumed to be Obama-Romney. It's not like Romney is far-right, and I can't see him being significantly more "out of sync" with Wisconsin than any potential GOP Senate nominee. So I find it odd for Romney to basically run at least 7-8 points behind an "unnamed Republican" Senate candidate.

With all due respect, Jim, those projections are clearly wrong, as the conventional wisdom (which I consult frequently) has informed me that Mitt Romney is The Only Candidate Who Can Defeat Obama (Tm)

Wisconsin goes Obama? I'd bet not but Walker recall data will be in hand beforehand.

Colorado? If I was advising the Republican nominee, I'd recommend getting hold of the faux Greek columns from Obama's time there and make some hay with them, big time. Some scenes:

"The Republican walks next to one, pushes it over and says, 'See, it was all fake.'"

"The ad begins with scenes from the big O's speech in front of the columns, crowd roaring, and fades to black. Print appears on screen showing Greece's Debt/GDP ratio, some seconds later the same ratio for the US. Crowd noise starts again but this time it's scenes from protests in Greece over the debt crisis. Segue to OWS protests. Fade to black with 'Don't let the President continue us on the path to a Greek tragedy.'"

Oh, yes, Colorado presents opportunities for the Republican candidate.

New Mexico? Good news, Old Mexico drug cartels rank your border the 3rd easiest to cross.

Nevada? Well, we know Dirty Harry can mobilize the union to provide enough voters but can they be certain all their members are loving the taste of kool-ade?

Really, are you better off than you were four, oops, scratch that - FIVE Trillion Dollars Ago?

I think WI, NM, and NV all go GOP this time, really no matter who the nominee is other than Paul

There is no way Romney loses Nevada. It's likely he'll win Colorado and New Mexico too. Obama is toast.

One interesting aspect is that if Obama gets reelected, he probably loses the Senate anyway (I definitely think the WI seat is going red; Dems will probably run Tammy Baldwin, a super liberal who is almost unknown outside of super liberal Madison).

Mr. Polarizer can't even govern with a split congress, and he will get absolutely nothing accomplished with Republicans controlling both houses. (Of course Republicans won't get anything done either.)

Obama might win, but the victory will be Pyrrhic: he's almost certainly going to run an ugly campaign and drag all of Washington's reputation through the mud, then spend 4 years as an ineffective lame duck beset by a belligerent congress . Probably leave office about as popular as GWB's 26% and give the Republicans landslides in 2014 and 2016 (the election in the 6th year of a presidency almost always goes against the incumbent.)

Dem voters can boost Obama's ego for 4 more years but it may lead to the electoral annihilation of the Democrats. (The downside is all of us have to suffer 4 more years of Obama's "new normal", and the situation the next Republican president inherits will be even more dire than it would be in 2012.)

Obama's no lock on reelection though: his current bounce is likely to fade as all his previous bounces have (this is just a bump up from SOTU and post-holiday doldrums; he hasn't really done anything to change to big picture.) The economy is skimming along the bottom more than recovering (housing prices are still an albatross), and there are all sorts of unpredictable international crises that could explode at any time. (Will Obama be lucky enough to have another 10 months of peace in the middle east and stability in Europe? Maybe, but not based on anything he has done.)

Domestically, I wonder if OWS is going to become a problem for him (riots in Oakland recently) -- a few months ago there was a link up here about some guys "7 keys for winning the Whitehouse" which included as one of the arguments for Obama's reelection "no civil unrest." But that has changed, and may get worse before it gets better. ("No scandals" was another argument for Obama's reelection; but how many solar companies have to go bankrupt with taxpayer money before the cronyism problem metastasizes? And can Holder keep avoiding the tough questions about "Fast & Furious" forever?)