Like a lot of you, my entry to the ‘Net is a selection of news stories from various sources. A couple of days ago, I was greeted by the headline, “TRUMP LEADS IN ONLY ONE SWING STATE.” That sounded bad enough for Trump; when I read the story, it was worse. Their “swing” state was Texas. Having voted Republican for the last ten presidential elections, is not part of the usual definition of “swing state.” It was one of the 538 list of battleground states.
I’m going to look at the battleground states in a minute, but first. let’s look at the frame. In ’16, Clinton won states with 232 Electoral votes. (She only got 227 of those votes, but “faithless electors” have never affected the result of an election.) 538 gives the probability of 72% that they all go to Biden. The 10 Battlefield States I’m going to look at total 178 EV, and there are 2 Congressional Districts which vote independently and also count as battlegrounds. That’s a total of 180 EV.
That leaves 126 EV which we can count as Trump states. (RCP counted 126 EV for Trump, but I’m not going to go back to explain the discrepancy.) Here, we begin with an advantage for Biden; he has to gather 38 more EV to eke out the narrowest victory; Trump has to gather 144. That also might have been one reason the Trump campaign expended a lot of effort to widen the field without much pay-off for the effort.
Here is how I break down the battlefield states into four categories. (B & T are obvious: L = Leads.)
Biden over 50. Leads by more than 5. probably enough together.
MI B50.9 T42.6 L08.2 EV18
PA B51.1 T43.9 L07.2 EV20
WI B50.9 T43.0 L07.9 EV10
These are the three states which normally went Democratic in presidential elections which shocked us all by going for Trump by a total of 78,000 votes in 2016. l don’t really expect them to be alone – see below – but along with the Clinton states, they would be enough. Michigan, Pennsylvania, and the Clinton states would do it; so would all three and the Clinton states after suffering defections of states entitled to 10 EV or fewer.
Trump needs; Biden leads.
FL B49.4 T44.9 L04.5 EV20
AZ B48.7 T44.9 L03.9 EV11
NC B49.4 T46.1 L03.3 EV15
GA B47.7 T47.0 L00.3 EV18
Trump can win without any individual state on this list, but it would be much harder without the state. What began this list was a column on 538 which said that Trump had a 7% chance of winning without Arizona and a 2% chance of winning without Florida. While Florida is swing state, the other three have historically been red. Biden leads only by a whisker in Georgia.
Swing states swinging.
IA B48.1 T46.8 L01.3 EV06
OH B46.8 T46.7 L00.1 EV 18
It’s strange, with Red states like Arizona and North Carolina switching. that only Florida among the swing states has come down on Biden’s side. these two are balancing on a knife’s edge. Still, Trump needs them, and Biden does not.
Texas
TX BBL. T48.4 L-1.4 EV38
Sure, it’s a Trump state, but if you can be nervous about Biden’s leads in Pennsylvania, Florida, and North Carolina, each of which is several times Trump’s lead in Texas, and say that Texas cannot shift. Greg Abbot certainly thinks that it can.
[State figures are from 538 Tues. evening, Oct. 13.]