It's Electoral College Time
The election is getting close enough to start thinking about it in terms of electoral votes
This is how the 2020 election ended. Joe Biden assembled a patchwork of states totaling 306 electoral votes in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic, upper Midwest, West Coast, Southwest, Georgia, and Hawaii. He traded one vote in Maine, which allocates electoral votes by congressional district, for one vote in Nebraska, which does the same.
With Biden and Trump facing off again this year and with our politics still shaped by the MAGA insurgency, it makes sense to use this map as our point of departure for understanding what the candidates need to do to claim the 270 electoral votes they need to win.
Donald Trump has never won the popular vote and there is no reason to believe he will win it this November. His path requires keeping his popular vote deficit small enough—with help from third party candidates siphoning votes from Biden—to inch ahead in states he won in 2016 but lost last time around.
This strategy is conceivable at the moment but will become infinitely harder if Biden is able to consolidate his base and open up a small but steady lead in the next several months.
Even in a race as close as it is now, Biden has a shorter path to 270 with more backup options than Trump.
There are presently seven swing states being actively contested by both campaigns: Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, and North Carolina. Biden can be re-elected by winning three of them. Trump needs to win four or five.
The return of the Blue Wall
Since the Clinton era, the Democrats’ path to the White House has run through the Northeast and industrial Midwest. The reason there wasn’t a second President Clinton is because Hillary lost close contests in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin—the three weakest links in the chain of states constituting the fabled Blue Wall.
Stretching from the rocky beaches of Maine and Massachusetts to the Boundary Waters of Minnesota, this arc of territory constituting a good portion of what is euphemistically known as the Rust Belt has been a Democratic stronghold since 1992.
Joe Biden is president today because he was able to reclaim the Blue Wall states that Hillary lost. But he didn’t do it by much.
He’ll win a second term if he can do it again. It’s his shortest route back to the White House.
The map below shows the states constituting Biden’s electoral core (in dark and light blue) plus the seven contested swing states. If you scroll over the map you can see the electoral vote totals for each one. Collectively, the blue states comprise 226 electoral votes (with Biden claiming three of Maine’s four electoral votes and one of Nebraska’s five).
Add the remaining Blue Wall states—Pennsylvania (19), Michigan (15), and Wisconsin (10)—for a total of 44 additional electoral votes and Biden is at exactly 270.
These three states have a long history of supporting Democratic candidates, and for the past eight election cycles they have voted as a group. They defected together from Hillary in 2016 and otherwise have gone blue in each of the other seven elections dating back to 1992.
Arguably, the most important of these is Pennsylvania. If Trump picks off Pennsylvania, the task for Biden becomes much more challenging. But if Scranton Joe struggles in the Keystone State, he is likely struggling across the upper Midwest and has bigger problems than trying to replace Pennsylvania’s 19 electoral votes.
This is why Biden is wise to approach the northern tier of states as a unit and work to consolidate his base across the region. He should be in good shape in November if he does.
Something less than a Sun Belt strategy
While Democratic dominance in the Rust Belt has been tested in the Trump era, changing population dynamics have made portions of the South and Mountain West more competitive. One-time red states like New Mexico, Colorado, and Virginia have been part of the Democratic coalition since 2008.
In 2020, Biden added Arizona and Georgia to that group, and narrowly lost North Carolina. All three are in play this year.
None of them have much of a history of supporting Democrats like their northern counterparts, so it’s a stretch to say that Biden could build his return to the White House on a Sun Belt strategy. It’s mathematically possible for him to get to 270 by claiming Arizona, Georgia, and North Carolina (he would also need the precariously situated electoral votes of Nevada), but it’s risky—not to mention unlikely that Biden would sweep the South and lose the Midwest.
However, the Sun Belt states provide an insurance policy against the potential loss of a Rust Belt state or two. Arizona’s 11 electoral votes could serve as a substitute for the loss of Wisconsin’s 10. Either Georgia or North Carolina could fill in for Michigan.
Invert this math and you can see why Trump’s road is more challenging. He could sweep the Sun Belt and still lose the election if he is unable to poke at least one hole in the Blue Wall. And sweeping the Sun Belt won’t be easy, with ultra-MAGA candidates like Kari Lake running for Arizona senate and Mark Robinson running for North Carolina governor.
Then there’s Florida
I’m listing Florida as a Trump state for a reason. It’s his adopted home, and he’s won it twice—most recently by 3.3 points. Democrats were pulverized there two years ago in senate and gubernatorial elections.
Joe Biden is not winning Florida unless he opens up a stable national lead by the fall. But that is a reasonable enough possibility for his campaign to support investments in field offices and hold campaign events in the Sunshine State. There is an abortion rights constitutional amendment on the ballot that could boost Biden’s turnout, as well as an under-the-radar senate race featuring an unpopular Republican incumbent.
It’s a smart strategic move. Not long ago, Florida was a contested swing state. Even Trump’s relatively comfortable 2020 victory there was just one-half of one percentage point larger than Biden’s victory in Michigan—which is universally regarded as a perennial toss-up.
And Florida has 30 electoral votes. Should Biden somehow find a way to win there, everything you just read will be moot.