North Dakota and Montana were entirely the fault of the GOP candidates running crappy campaigns in both cases.
The comments determined Indiana and Missouri Senate races.
The Fluke controversy in February had a much greater impact on costing Romney women and independent voters then did Akin, which only served to make more severe an already serious problem.
Romney owned Florida on February 1st, 2012. Contrary to the media reporting he came out of the Florida primary in a solid condition with even his Bain Capital experience having a net positive approval amongst all voters. Had the election been held on that date, Romney would have won the state by five to ten points. It was the steady, unresponded to bombardment over the summer, an insufficient turnout operation in the end and the failure by Romney's team to anticipate the strength of the Obama operation in the state, that led to Obama's victory there.
I don't think abortion factored that prominently in Florida in 2012. The D base there isn't particularly upscale and the one major upscale socially liberal D county (Palm Beach) swung quite heavily to Romney. Self deportation and anti-immigrant rhetoric was much more relevant there, both for motivating Hispanic Dems in Orlando and Tampa and swinging Cuban moderates in Miami en masse to Obama.
CO, NH and IA are where abortion/social issues mattered most IMO, with an honorable mention to VA. They all fit the left-libertarian profile, are less diverse than the nation and have a lot of upscale Democrats.
Honestly, Florida looks like it's on the brink of demographic oblivion for the GOP. Romney had a greater non-Hispanic white swing there than nationally according to exit polls (from 56% McCain to 61% Romney), but the electorate fell from 71% non-Hispanic white in 2008 to 67% in 2012 which entirely explains Obama's surprise win. VA is the only other state where Romney did better than nationally with non-Hispanic white voters and still lost.
This is why Rubio and Jeb Bush are leading the charge on immigration reform. It's not about Texas and Arizona. It's because Florida could start voting left of the nation, which would leave the GOP as bad off as the late 19th century Dems in the electoral college.
Romney didn't make any abortion gaffes so he wasn't penalized but Republicans who did lost over it. Mitt Romney took a very moderate stance where he was pro-life but wouldn't pass any abortion legislation kind of like Clinton in 1992.
