Here's why Romney thought he would win

In an exclusive, The New Republic is reporting on the internal polls that generated unwarranted optimism in the Mitt Romney camp, causing them to assume victory was coming on Nov. 6.

Earlier reports indicated that the campaign’s numbers showed Romney winning Florida and Virginia – wrong on both counts. But Noam Scheiber of TNR was given a look at additional numbers that indicate the Republican team wrongly thought they would win Colorado and New Hampshire, were tied in Iowa and were within striking distance in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.

So, that’s why Romney advisers foolishly skipped the usual process of writing a concession speech to be delivered, if needed, on election night.

Scheiber talked with Romney’s pollster, Neil Newhouse, and questioned why the Iowa and New Hampshire numbers, in particular, were so far off the mark. Underestimating the Election Day turnout among Hispanics and young voters was part of the problem, but wishful thinking also entered the picture.

Here’s a portion of the TNR piece:

“Together, New Hampshire, Colorado, and Iowa go most of the way toward explaining why the Romney campaign believed it was so well-positioned. When combined with North Carolina, Florida, and Virginia—the trio of states the Romney campaign assumed were largely in the bag—Romney would bank 267 electoral votes, only three shy of the magic number. Furthermore, according to Newhouse, the campaign’s final internal polls had Romney down a mere two points in Ohio—a state that would have put him comfortably over the top—and Team Romney generally believed it had momentum in the final few days of the race. (You see hints of this momentum when you compare the Saturday numbers in each state with the Sunday numbers. Romney gains in five out of the six states, though Newhouse cautions not to make too much of this since the numbers can bounce around wildly on any given day.) While none of this should have been grounds for the sublime optimism that leads you to eschew a concession speech—two points is still a ton to make up in a state like Ohio in 48 hours—you see how the campaign might conclude that the pieces were falling into place.”