Can president Trump still make it to white house for second term?

Trump needs to win Ohio, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Florida to get 270 electoral votes

  

All the national polls so far giving clear edge to former vice president Joe Biden against president Trump. The opinion polls in key battleground states are also not encouraging for Trump. Trump is trailing against Biden in crucial swing states like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. These three states played important role in the victory of Trump in 2016. Trump lost the popular vote against Hillary Clinton in 2016 with nearly three million votes but succeed to win the required number of electoral votes to clinch the presidency. 

His chances are slim. It seems difficult but not impossible at this stage. It is an uphill task for Trump. He needs to do a lot more in next few days and specially on voting day November 03 to achieve the magic figure of 270 electoral votes. Mathematically speaking, he still can do it but politically there are lot of odds. 

 He  He needs to win Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida,North Carolina and at least Wisconsin or Michigan. The bad news is that opinion polls are indicating that Biden is still holding on to his lead in Wisconsin, Michigan and even Pennsylvania just two days before the Election Day. North Carolina, Ohio and Florida are tossed up means Trump has a chance to clinch these three states. 

President Trump needs 270 votes in the Electoral College to win re-election and with less than two weeks to go until November 3 he can only count on 164 votes from reliably Republican states including Texas, which is tight.

Lot depend on the turnout on election day. A high Republican turnout on election day could turn tables on Democrats. The closely fought states could go Trump's way. The Republican voters will out in big numbers on November 03. 

The independent voters will also play important role in closely fought states. One or two percent swing in tied state can change the complexion of the election.  

Trump must win Florida, Ohio and North Carolina – states that polls and analysts say are toss-ups and where Biden is competing. And he needs a combination of the Midwest states that gave him the presidency in 2016 – Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin – where Biden now holds an advantage.

In 2016, Hillary Clinton won the nationwide popular election by 2.86 million votes, but Trump gained 304 votes in the Electoral College to take the White House in a surprise upset. This year the dynamic is different. 

The tier of competitive states Trump must win are five that he won in 2016 but now are rated by independent forecasters as toss-ups, where Trump’s odds are even with Biden’s at 50-50, like the toss of a coin. Those are Georgia, Ohio, Iowa, North Carolina and Florida that combined account for 84 Electoral College delegates.

Winning all five would bring Trump to 248 in the Electoral College count. But he cannot afford to lose any of those states and indicative of the trouble he is in, Trump campaigned recently in Georgia and Iowa, two states where Biden and Democrats running for the US Senate are competitive.

Trump almost certainly cannot reach 270 electoral votes without carrying Florida, where polls show a tight race. Some have suggested a slight Biden advantage.Even if Trump nets Florida and holds battlegrounds he won in the South and Southwest, he would still be short of 270 electoral votes.

The president is wagering much on Pennsylvania as the best chance of moving within striking distance of that threshold. After a trio of rallies this past week, Trump held four more in the state on Saturday.

He’s been making stops across Pennsylvania, from counties outside Philadelphia, the largest metro area, to the rural northwest corner of the state.

Among his upcoming stops: Bucks County. It was once Philadelphia’s most GOP-heavy suburb but has been trending Democratic and is an example of the obstacles Trump is facing. He lost the county by less than 2 percentage points in 2016 and has seen his standing in the suburbs steadily erode since then.

Trump’s argument to Pennsylvania voters was recharged after Biden, during their Oct. 22 debate, called for phasing out fossil fuels. That created an opportunity for Trump in a state with a robust natural gas industry.

                                                        

Biden’s plan to abolish the entire U.S. oil industry — you saw that?” Trump noted at a rally last week in Lansing, Michigan, recalling Biden’s call for phasing renewable fuels in and fossil fuels out over time. “Will cripple our nation and send us into an absolute deep depression.”

Even if Trump wins Florida and Pennsylvania, he would still be short of the magic number if he can’t carry most of the states he won in 2016.

He could nose ahead in Ohio, long one of his strongest states, but would still need to cobble together a series of states he won in 2016, such as Iowa, and some he lost narrowly and continues to trail.

That more complicated path would include flipping Minnesota, Nevada and New Hampshire. That, however, would defy political logic for an incumbent to lose in places won four years ago and win in places lost back then.

And in a sign that the president faces an uphill climb this time the RCP polling averages also show close races in several states which Trump won in 2016 including Georgia, Iowa, Ohio and Texas.

Trump repeatedly denounces the polls as inaccurate but he has taken time out from his busy schedule to campaign in Iowa and Georgia, which he won by 9.4 and five points respectively four years ago.

In an indication that the White House anticipates a close race where every electoral vote counts, Trump has also visited both Nebraska and Maine, states where only a single electoral vote may be in the balance.

Unlike in the other 48 states and Washington DC, the five electoral votes in Nebraska and four electoral votes in Maine are divided between the winner of the popular vote in the state and the winners of each of their congressional districts.

Trump is expected to easily win the popular vote in Nebraska and Biden is on track to do the same in Maine but each state also features a hard-fought congressional race — and the solitary electoral vote that comes with it.

                                                                     Khalid Bhatti