The Yahoo News election outlook: 100 electoral votes will decide contest

— -- Economic growth may be stagnating, high-dollar donors may be harder to woo than they were four years ago, and Mitt Romney may be narrowing the gap in public-opinion polls, but President Barack Obama has one key thing going for him at the outset of this general election season: a significant advantage in the battle for 270 electoral votes.

According to a Yahoo! News analysis of the current electoral map, President Obama begins this race within grasp of the promised land. Nineteen states and the District of Columbia are either solidly in the Obama column or leaning that way, giving Obama a total of 247 electoral votes. Mitt Romney has 23 states either solidly in the fold or leaning in his direction, for a total of 191 electoral votes.

That leaves eight battleground states up for grabs: Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Virginia, Colorado, Nevada, Iowa and New Hampshire. An even 100 electoral votes are available between them.

We clearly aren't the only ones who see these states as the most important battlegrounds. Take a look at the Obama and Romney travel schedules this week. Mitt Romney chose New Hampshire as the locale for his big 'I'm all but the nominee' victory speech last night while President Obama spent two days this week traveling to North Carolina, Colorado, and Iowa.

Yes, it is time for that quadrennial elementary school civics refresher course, wherein we remind ourselves that a presidential election is not a popular election but a series of 51 individual elections, in which each candidate seeks to amass the requisite 270 electoral votes needed to secure a majority of the 538 electoral votes. 

As Mitt Romney delivered a clean sweep of five Northeastern primaries and once again delivered a victory speech that framed his general election campaign against Barack Obama, a look at the current electoral landscape shows just how much work the Massachusetts Republican has ahead of him.

[Poll: Young people think Obama will win re-election] Election 2012 Flickr group to submit your photos of the campaign in action.