Tuesday’s announcement that former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, who had racked up a series of Republican primary wins this year, was bowing out of the race all but paved the way for Mitt Romney to be the Republican Party’s nominee this year in the general election. 

Santorum, who has recently been struggling in state polls against the surging Romney, was finding himself low on money, short on endorsements and decided the best route was to suspend his campaign without offering an endorsement to Romney.

Nevertheless, Santorum’s exit from the race has turned the focus from the Republican nomination race to the presidential race this November. This has led many political pundits as well as ordinary voters to wonder what President Barack Obama’s campaign is cooking up to take on the presumptive Republican nominee going into November.

“Like most incumbent presidents, he will promote his achievements while in office the first four years as well as acknowledge that work still needs to be done,” said Dianne Bystrom, director of the Catt Center for Women and Politics. “Despite some setbacks mostly due to the economy and controversy over the Affordable Care Act, President Obama can point to achievements in domestic and foreign policy.”

This year’s general election appears to be an interesting, yet fragile, scenario for the Obama campaign, which runs the risk of a tough reelection if the economy does not improve and issues like high gas prices are still a fixture in the minds of voters come November.

“President Obama is vulnerable due to the employment rate as well as rising gas prices,” Bystrom said. “The economy will be a major issue, and voters need to feel optimistic that it will continue to improve under his leadership.”

The leadership narrative is definitely another important factor that could sway voters one way or the other. While it is likely the Obama campaign will attempt to paint Romney as someone who is out of touch with the general concerns of ordinary voters, Romney will likely fire back by blaming Obama for a slow economic recovery.

“Obama has to define the narrative of who Romney is,” said David Peterson, associate professor of political science. “He needs to make Romney as someone with no core principles.”

On the flip side, Peterson said Romney’s best chances were to get the country fired up about the future, something he has failed to do.

“If you’re Romney, you have to get people excited. No one is talking about how our best days are in front of us,” Peterson said.

Strategy aside, another major factor in presidential races these days is money. Fundraising has been an essential part of every political campaign in recent memory. With the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision on the Super PAC, Citizens United, political groups can now raise unlimited amounts of money to spend on political advertising in favor or against a particular politician or policy. 

Additionally, this has put extra stress on politicians to make sure that their campaign coffers remain flushed with cash to combat any potential attacks that the other campaign or Super PACs may launch.

“For fundraising, it’s going to be close,” Peterson said. “While the GOP is going to raise a lot of their money through Super PACs, Obama will raise money for the party and himself. Obama’s people can do a lot with their money, things the Super PACs cannot, but nevertheless the market is going to be saturated with political ads.”

Bystrom also agreed that Obama and Romney will have very different ways of raising political capital, all for the sake of their respective reelection efforts but pointed to Obama’s use of social media as an advantage for the incumbent going into election season.

“The President has strong speaking skills, particularly as a campaigner, which serves his campaign well as he raises money,” Bystrom said. “His campaign also relies heavily on social media and micro-targeting to raise money across the spectrum.”

In the end, both the Obama and Romney campaigns will do anything in their power to make sure that their candidates get the 270 electoral votes needed to secure a presidential victory.

However, what makes this election so interesting is that CNN political pundit John King, after the announcement on Tuesday from Santorum, made the rough prediction that both Obama and Romney will be tied with 266 electoral votes a piece, thus leaving one state that could potentially decide the next president: Iowa.

Although, this is only a rough prediction, there is very little debate that Iowa is a swing state that could prove pivotal in deciding who the next president of the United States is.