#7 BLUF: Not to get cocky but Florida is moving red. If Trump carries Florida, Pennsylvania and one other midwestern rustbelt state, it's hard to see him losing.
Very hard to see CO or NV shifting to Trump, or NH shifting to Warren.
OTOH, Ohio's definitely now a red state and Florida's moving red, perhaps partly because of the horror show that is Venezuela and the Dems' lurch to the left combining to terrify expats in south FL.
So that gets Trump to 219 + 29 = 248 per the map. However, North Carolina should be gray, not red: it's definitely in play now for the Democrats. So the real baseline is probably 248 - 15 = 233 for Trump (including Florida).
Likewise, it's hard to really see Nevada or Colorado as being in play, so the Democrats' total is more like 187 + 6 + 9 = 202.
So the Dems need 68 votes from the battleground states, and the Repubs need 38.
They'll be fighting over at most 9 states: likely 4 rustbelt states totaling 56 votes, 3 sunbelt states totaling 39 votes, and maybe NH-ME totaling 8 votes:
- Pennsylvania 20
- Michigan 16
- Wisconsin 10
- Minnesota 10
- Virginia 13
- North Carolina 15
- Arizona 11
- New Hampshire 4
- Maine 4
Let's say Fauxcahontas picks up all the lefties in NH and ME, and barely wins those states. Then she will still need 60 votes from the 4 rustbelt and 3 sunbelt states.
Trump needs only 30 votes from those 7 states, every one of which has at least 10 votes. Really, he just needs to carry Pennsylvania and only one of the 6 remaining battleground states.
Not to get cocky, but Warren's anti-fracking stand will lose her western Pennsylvania.
Trump needs to hit this hard. If he does so, and if he can avoid doing stupid things that alienate suburbanites in the other battleground states, he'll win easily. |
The brown "battleground" states are the ones that Hillary won by less than 6% or Trump won by a whisker thin margin. Most of the rust belt states the Demoncrats will be fighting for their lives in as the Union workers reject the radical left.