Barack Obama won those places by an average of 6 points in 2008, a margin pretty similar to what he earned in the national popular vote that year. Our polls have found wide disparities so far in how the different Republican contenders do against Obama in these states:
-Mitt Romney does the best, trailing Obama by an average of less than 1%. He fares better than John McCain did in all 8 of the states. His most striking results are in Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. Obama won all of those places by double digits in 2008 but leads Romney by 5 points or less in each of them. It looks like Romney is the GOP's best hope at this point for being competitive in the Midwest.
-Mike Huckabee does the next best, trailing Obama by an average of just under 2%. He improves upon John McCain's performance in all of the states except for Minnesota, where he matches it. The most eye catching thing in Huckabee's numbers is that he wins comfortably in Montana (by 10) and Missouri (by 7) where McCain just barely won in 2008 as well as flipping North Carolina (where he leads by 4) back into the GOP column.
-Newt Gingrich does about the same as Obama did in these right states, trailing by an average of 6.5%. In three of the states (Wisconsin, Michigan, and Missouri) he does better than McCain did, in three of them (Ohio, Minnesota, Virginia) he does worse, and in two of them (North Carolina and Montana) he does the same. At this point if Gingrich was the nominee the electoral map would look basically identical to 2012.
-Sarah Palin is the only one of the Republicans who fares a good deal worse than John McCain did across these eight states, trailing by an average of just under 10 points. In 6 of the 8 states Obama's performance is better against Palin than it was in 2008 and in just two of them (Wisconsin and Montana) does Palin match McCain's performance. There aren't any states where she does better than he did. The Palin numbers are most striking in North Carolina where a small victory for Obama in 2008 is a much more comfortable lead for him against Palin, and in Missouri where Obama narrowly lost against McCain but leads Palin by a wider margin.
Taken as a whole these numbers show that if the election was today:
-Romney or Huckabee as a nominee would lead to something pretty close to a toss up race, with perhaps the narrowest of advantages for Obama.
-Gingrich as the nominee would lead to a race very similar to 2008.
-Palin as the nominee would lead Obama to a wider victory margin and allow him to pick up at least one state where he fell short the last time around.
Here's the full data on our swing state polls so far:
| State | 2008 Vote | Gingrich | Huckabee | Palin | Romney |
| Montana | R+2 | R+2 | R+10 | R+2 | R+11 |
| Virginia | D+6 | D+11 | D+5 | D+11 | D+5 |
| North Carolina | D+1 | D+1 | R+4 | D+5 | Tie |
| Missouri | Tie | R+1 | R+7 | D+3 | R+6 |
| Michigan | D+16 | D+15 | D+12 | D+21 | D+4 |
| Minnesota | D+10 | D+13 | D+10 | D+18 | D+5 |
| Ohio | D+4 | D+6 | D+1 | D+7 | D+2 |
| Wisconsin | D+14 | D+9 | D+6 | D+14 | D+4 |
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