Scarlet Woman Holding Firm Lead (Revelation 17)

Clinton Has Solid Lead in Electoral College; Trump’s Winning Map Is Unclear

By NATE COHN
NOVEMBER 5, 2016

Over the last few days of the race, Donald J. Trump intends to travel all over the country. He's going to Florida, North Carolina, Nevada, Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire and even Minnesota, he said Saturday.

It’s an impressive travel schedule, but it may reflect the biggest challenge facing him right now: It’s still not clear exactly where and how he would win.

Hillary Clinton has a consistent and clear advantage in states worth at least 270 electoral votes, even if the race has undoubtedly tightened over the last few weeks. But even that understates the challenge facing Mr. Trump’s campaign: It’s not at all obvious where he has his best chance of breaking through, making it harder for him to concentrate his efforts over the last days of the campaign.

This is not to say that Mr. Trump can’t win. The polls could be off across the board.

But even if he wins Arizona, Iowa, Ohio, Utah, North Carolina, Florida and New Hampshire, he's still short of a victory.

He's not assured to win any of those states, to be clear — although he's a clear favorite in Iowa and Utah at this point. He has trailed in more live interview polls of North Carolina and Florida than he has led, although the national race has tightened since many were taken.

But he would still need to win one of the following states: Pennsylvania, Nevada, Michigan, Wisconsin, Colorado, Virginia, or perhaps New Mexico or Minnesota.

Of all of these states, the only one where Mr. Trump has really been close in the polls is Nevada.

But Nevada is also the state where we know the most about the results because of early voting, and it hasn't brought good news for Mr. Trump.

Democrats have largely replicated the turnout from 2012 (when President Obama ultimately won the state by about seven points), thanks in no small part to a strong turnout among Hispanic voters. Many analysts, like the Nevada politics guru Jon Ralston, have concluded that Mr. Trump has basically lost the state already.

This might seem difficult to reconcile with the polling, but Nevada is a state where pollsters have underestimated Democrats in the past. One theory is that the polls are not very good at capturing the most Democratic-leaning Hispanic voters. And indeed, the polls showing Mr. Trump ahead in the state have shown a smaller lead for Mrs. Clinton among nonwhite voters than seems plausible, particularly given his rhetoric against Hispanic immigrants.

Perhaps Mr. Trump will mount a huge comeback in Nevada on Election Day. Or maybe Democrats are much weaker among registered Democrats or unaffiliated voters than most analysts believe.

But if Mrs. Clinton does indeed have a big advantage in Nevada, then his chances start looking very bleak: He's at a disadvantage in the polls of all of the other states that could put him over the top.

What's more, it's not really clear where he has his best chance — something reflected in Mr. Trump's unfocused pre-election push.

Pennsylvania seemed like Mr. Trump's best option earlier in the year, but he hasn't led a live interview poll there since the summer. The final nonpartisan live interview polls there show Mrs. Clinton ahead by a comfortable margin of four to six points. The state will probably be close, but it's quite clear that she has the edge.

Wisconsin is another state that seemed as if it could be promising for Mr. Trump. It has a large population of white working-class Democrats, just as Iowa does, and Mr. Trump is running well in Iowa. But he has struggled among Republican-leaning voters in the Milwaukee suburbs.

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The race could tighten if these voters return to his side, but he hasn't led a live interview poll there all year.

Michigan could be a more interesting option for Mr. Trump. It was the most Democratic of all of these states in the 2012 election, and he hasn’t led a poll there all year either. But recent polls have shown a relatively tight race there.

Mrs. Clinton visited the state on Friday, and President Obama will visit on Sunday and Monday, and Mrs. Clinton will make another stop on Monday, so clearly the Clinton campaign thinks there's some softness there. That said, if the election comes down to whether Mr. Trump can score an upset in Michigan, he's in a lot of trouble. It seems hard to imagine he could carry the state without also carrying Pennsylvania.

Colorado is a notch tougher than any of those states. The demographics and polling are both tough for Mr. Trump. It has one of the best-educated populations in the country, along with a large Hispanic population.

There was one recent poll that showed a tied race in Colorado, but most have shown Mrs. Clinton with a lead. Like Nevada, Colorado is also a state where the Democrats have outperformed their final poll numbers in every presidential election since 2004. The early vote numbers are strong for the Democrats there as well.

Virginia is like Colorado: Neither polls nor demographics seem promising for Mr. Trump. Ultimately, the fact that the race is close in North Carolina is a very strong indicator that Mrs. Clinton has a big lead in Virginia.

Then there are states like Minnesota and New Mexico. The polls have not shown an especially tight race, and Mrs. Clinton is not campaigning or airing advertisements there. Mr. Trump's team has held out some hope of winning, but these states seem especially unlikely to decide the election.

Again, the polls are close enough that the possibility of a victory for Mr. Trump is still quite real. But it's just not clear exactly how or where he would break through. It doesn't seem that the Trump campaign knows either.