The 400,000 Votes That Tipped the Election

Broad trends and the national political undertow can't be adequately captured in any single statistic -- but if Mitt Romney had managed to push the electorate in a handful of states a few clicks in his direction, he'd be the president-elect, rather than an also-ran. Via Jim Geragthy:

Florida: 73,858

Ohio: 103,481

Virginia: 115,910

Colorado: 113,099

Those four states, with a collective margin of, 406,348 for Obama, add up to 69 electoral votes. Had Romney won 407,000 or so additional votes in the right proportion in those states, he would...