CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said Monday that he thinks GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney would defeat President Obama if the election were held today.
Speaking to reporters at an RNC news conference at the site of the Democrat’s convention that opens Tuesday, Mr. Priebus said he considers the race to be “basically tied” at the moment, but predicted that Mr. Romney would win several swing states where recent polls have shown him to be virtually even the president, including Florida, Wisconsin, Virginia and Iowa.
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“We clearly have a lot of momentum coming out of” last week’s Republican National Convention, he said. “I kind of believe that we’ve got nowhere else to go but up, and the issue with Barack Obama is that he can’t get any higher than he is.”
Republicans have said often that they hope to make gains during the political conventions by telling Mr. Romney’s personal story. They also argue that voters’ relatively unfamiliarity with the former Massachusetts governor gives him an advantage over Mr. Obama, whose story has already been told.
Recent polls have shown Mr. Romney and the president in a virtual dead heat for the public vote, but many analysts say Mr. Romney will need to take a decided majority of current toss-up states if he hopes to win the Electoral College vote.
