Romney Looks to Swing 3 Blue States

With the election less than a week away, Mitt Romney is making a push in some seemingly unlikely places. Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Minnesota have all gone blue since at least 1988—and Minnesota has the longest blue streak of any state, going the way of the Democrats since 1972. Still, Republicans tell the Washington Post the states may be within reach for Romney, and his campaign has been advertising in both Pennsylvania and Minnesota; GOP super PACs have sunk dollars into all three. "Can we win all of them? Probably not," says a top Romney adviser of the trio of states. "Can we win some of them? I think probably so."

The Obama campaign is countering with ads of its own in the three states, and staffers say they aren't worried, suggesting that Romney is pursuing the states because he can't win the real swing states. Polls are getting closer in Pennsylvania and Michigan, but "the lead here is four or five (percentage points), and I don’t think one week of TV is going to alter that," says Pennsylvania's former Dem governor Ed Rendell. As for Minnesota, it currently has a Republican legislature, and a recent poll puts Obama's lead within the margin of error. (More Mitt Romney stories.)