GOP Lays Out 2012 Electoral Map

As President Obama prepares to visit Northern Virginia on Wednesday, the Republican National Committee is making the case that the Commonwealth — as well as a handful of other swing states — have moved away from the incumbent over the past three years.

In a memo obtained by The Fix, RNC political director Rick Wiley notes that Virginia is one of nine states — Indiana, North Carolina, Ohio, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Iowa and Florida are the others — that Obama won in 2008 and President George W. Bush carried four years earlier.

“His path to re-election must go back through those states, but his prospects there are far from certain,” wrote Wiley. “In only two and a half years, his position in those states, and in many others, has deteriorated dramatically, and Republican strength is in plain view.”

As evidence of the GOP’s momentum in those states, Wiley pointed out that in the three years since Obama won them, Republicans have won a Senate seat, four governor’s races, seven state legislative chambers and 17 House seats in the nine states combined.

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