Road to 270:  The paths to presidential victory

>> chuck todd is nbc's political director and chief white house correspondent, and this morning he is mapping out the paths to victory for both president obama and governor romney . chuck, good morning to you.

>> good morning, savannah. got my toys all ready to go.

>> we'll run through some scenarios. the first one is the situation with the candidates neck and neck nationally. the president with a slight lee in key battleground states sets up a scenario potentially where governor romney could win the popular vote and lose the electoral college . lay that out.

>> i have the ten battleground states here, you watch these numbers above me change and also we'll have a map in the foreground that will change. the very narrow path for the pennsylvania means pennsylvania stays where it is and nevada stays in his column because of hispanics and he wins wisconsin and ohio and that's it. he does it by one electoral vote , 271. this would mean all of these other states, all the southern states , florida , north carolina , virginia , colorado , savannah, iowa over here and new hampshire could all go to mitt romney , and he's short. that's the narrow path. that's the popular vote split in my guess.

>> let's move on. we'll look at comfortable path and the narrow path for each candidate. let's start with the president. what's the best case scenario that's realistic for him on tuesday night?

>> the best case scenario means he carries basically most of the swing states , colorado , virginia . you saw our poll with one point over here. probably also iowa , and then the difference between him getting over 300 electoral votes , savannah and under, would be the state of new hampshire in my opinion, the difference between 3030 and 299. i think florida and north carolina at this point probably end up in the romney column, but those of those are close, too.

>> you have ohio in the president's column.

>> that would already be there in this comfortable path for the president.

>> if you take out ohio , what's the president's path to 270?

>> without ohio it is doable but it's unrealistic. the thing is, if you take ohio out and he's at 281, he can afford to lose wisconsin and ohio , if he somehow carried virginia . there are other ways for him to get to 271 that are not out of the realm. this one, for instance, would include virginia .

>> let's stay on ohio for a moment. no republican has won ohio without the state of ohio . show us how romney could win without ohio .

>> without ohio . let's put it back over here, keep it here with florida and north carolina , colorado over here and give him virginia , and that should do it, right at 271, an of these states over here, this is without -- to me the key will be wisconsin , right? that would be the real difference. that would be the real upset. it goes to the midwest firewall. got to pick one of those off.

>> the romney campaign says they have enthusiasm, intensity on their side. show us the big night for governor romney , what that would look like.

>> i think the big night to be honest would include ohio and would include a pennsylvania and would probably include iowa . i don't think under any scenario nevada makes it over to him. i think the ceiling for mitt romney is 315.

>> all right. another scenario, we'll prep for the 269-269.

>> i can do it fast.

>> let's just hope it doesn't happen or maybe talk about it tomorrow.

>> all right, fair enough.

>> and a reminder nbc's election night coverage right here in democracy plaza kicks off at 7:00 p.m . eastern, 4:00 p.m . pacific time .