The road to 270 electoral votes

>> to our political director and chief white house correspondent, chuck todd . so chuck, this is the field in front of us, john sununu said that colin powell endorsed the president because they're both black guys. another endorses president obama for president, by mistake, and romney talks about the piece of property, accepting help from stimulus money, beyond unforced errors, the romney 's campaign is to put together the electoral and not the popular vote in the math, in the next ten days to push the victory.

>> that is right texhe magic number , 270, here the states in yellow are the states we believe are toss-ups, the ones which we just don't know. they may lean one way or the other. let me take you through some scenarios where we think the battleground will narrow in the next week. if you talk to democrats they believe they're ahead in new hampshire. by the way, as you see me moving these states you will see the numbers above the president and above mitt romney change. so watch as i change them. they think they're a little bit ahead in wisconsin. but they also believe the democrats are a little ahead in ohio . they feel good, that gets the president to 63. mitt romney , and the republicans believe, florida and virginia, the two southern states putting them in pretty good shape, getting them to 248. that brings us to the two most hotly contested, colorado and ohio , but look at this, if i move ohio over to romney , he is still short of the 270 magic number , could mean that colorado, a state we told you yesterday in the polling had it 48-48, means it could be the state keeping us up all night. but speaking of keeping us up all night, here, i give the midwestern states all to romney . wisconsin, iowa, ohio and florida, but go ahead and give virginia to the president. let me show you where this takes us. 269 for romney . 269 for the president. here, and i have no more electoral votes to push. this would mean we would have the constitution work, and this would also mean, brian, that the most likely outcome in this is the house would elect romney president, and the senate would elect biden vp. there are a lot of possible scenarios, this one, not so implausible.

>> chuck, step away, we have day days to go, many different scenarios, we'll be checking in with you, chuck todd , washington.