DeSantis starts as the clearest Trump alternative, but is a repeat of 2016 inevitable?

Invisible Primary: Visible -- Thoughts on the invisible primary and links to the goings on of the moment as 2024 approaches...

First, over at FHQ Plus...

• Look, this Trump trial is going to be a big deal in the middle of primary season next year. But where it lands on the calendar and how the calendar is very likely to settle make the combination potentially quite disruptive. All the details at FHQ Plus.

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In Invisible Primary: Visible today...

...

The one common theme in many of the send ups of Ron DeSantis on launch day for his presidential campaign is that the Florida governor is well enough positioned to challenge former President Donald Trump for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, but neither have been strong enough to ward off the entry of other candidates with the conventional qualities of formidable, if not successful, past presidential aspirants. The thought goes -- and there is evidence to back it up -- that those other candidates in or on the verge of being in the race are focused more in recent days on challenging for the mantle of the Trump alternative than they are on actually directly taking on the former president. 

None of this is news. DeSantis has been taking incoming fire in recent weeks from not only the Trump campaign but the other candidates seeking to break out of the single digits in public opinion polling of the race. Understandably, that also conjures up memories of the 2016 Republican presidential nomination contest. But even with the presence of that echo of 2016, DeSantis enters a race for the 2024 nomination with far different dynamics. 

And those differing dynamics center on the former president and not Governor DeSantis. First of all, as the political world was reminded again yesterday, Trump faces criminal charges that he is set to go on trial for at a crucial point on the 2024 presidential primary calendar. That will add an element of uncertainty to the progression of primary season unprecedented in the post-reform era (much less any era of American history). But, by virtue of being a former president (among other things), Trump is also in a far better position in 2023 than he was in 2015. Notably, throughout the competitive portion of the 2016 process, Trump only approached (but did not attain) majority support in the national polls after big victories in the cluster of primaries in the mid-Atlantic and northeast in late April, right before the last of the remaining competition withdrew from the race. 

Look, FHQ does not want to harp on national polls too much, especially seven months before any votes are set to be cast. But Trump has basically been in the same position in the national polls that he was in at the height of his 2016 support all along during the 2024 invisible primary. And in the last month, the former president has crested above majority support. Yes, all of the usual caveats apply. It is May before a presidential election year. Things may change. Additionally, state polls may offer a better idea of where the candidates stand relative to one another in a sequential (not national) contest.

Still, Trump has been and is in a position to claim a lot of delegates under the rules that will govern the 2024 process. And delegates are the currency of a nomination race. His position in 2023 is consistent with or above his best in 2016. Yes, there will be winner-take-all contests that will allow a plurality winner to be awarded all of the delegates in some (but not all) primaries and caucuses after March 15 just like in 2016. But that distinction matters little if Trump is winning a majority of support in those contests. Even if Trump trails off from his current pace and drops below majority support, it may not change the fact that DeSantis is the only candidate to this point who is even flirting with the delegate qualifying threshold in most states (20 percent) with contests before March 15. And in recent days DeSantis has dipped below that mark. 

The point is that the candidate dynamics of 2023 may resemble those of 2015-16 on the Republican side, but they may meet a different set of preferences among the electorate (at least according to polls at this point) and will intersect with a more frontrunner-favorable set of delegate allocation rules in 2024. Neither of those are a repeat of 2016. The end result may be. Trump may end up the 2024 Republican nominee, but there may be similarities and differences in how the process gets to that point relative to 2016.

...

In the endorsement primary, DeSantis nabbed another congressional backer, Rep. Rich McCormick (R-GA, 6th). Team DeSantis also lined up the support of over 100 former Trump administration officials. The executive branch is huge, but this is no small show of support, especially when the president they all worked for is running for the same position again.

...

A handful of quick hits:

• The Georgia Republican state convention next month has drawn in at least three presidential candidates, Trump, Asa Hutchinson and Vivek Ramaswamy. Bear in mind that this may be a setting in which 2024 delegate allocation rules are at stake. And because of the new earlier primary, Peach state Republicans will have to have a different allocation plan for 2024 than they used in 2020.
• Speaking of Hutchinson, the travel primary saw the former Arkansas governor was in South Carolina on Tuesday pitching optimism and unity. Palmetto state Republicans could be forgiven if they thought those themes echoed another more local candidate vying for the Republican nomination.
• Nikki Haley is counting on retail politics in Iowa. [She will not be alone.]
• Fellow South Carolinian, Tim Scott, is off to a reasonable start, post-launch. The first ad in that big ad buy is airing and he amassed $2 million in donations in the money primary in the first 24 hours after he announced.
• The things that make Governor Chris Sununu popular in New Hampshire may not translate well to a run for the White House, even among Republicans in his home state. 

...

On this date...

...in 1984, two days after winning a beauty contest primary in the Gem state, Colorado Senator Gary Hart won the Idaho Democratic caucuses, where delegates were allocated.

...in 1988, Vice President George H.W. Bush claimed victory in the Idaho primary.

...in 2016, Donald Trump won the primary in Washington state.

--

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The Iowa Straw Poll and the Regular Rhythms of the Presidential Nomination Process

FHQ got a sneak peek of Jonathan Bernstein's Friday column on Thursday when we had a chance to chat after my APSA roundtable on the 2020 presidential nomination process. At the time, I agreed with him. Honestly, thoughts of the straw poll that wasn't in Iowa in 2016 had long ago been washed over and displaced with the logjam of events that happened during and since the 2016 cycle. So, sure, perhaps no straw poll meant one fewer winnowing opportunity; one coordination event lost.

But the more I thought about it -- and I had time when I was stuck on the T during an outage on the way home that evening -- the more I thought, well, surely there was some event that filled the void that the Ames Straw Poll absence had left behind. Although they were down in number in 2016 -- just like primary debates -- from the 2012 cycle, there were other straw polls that were conducted during the year leading up the first votes being cast in the caucuses in Iowa.

Initially, FHQ thought of the fall straw poll annually conducted at the Value Voters Summit. That is an event and a straw poll that receives some attention, falls in roughly the same window of time in which the Iowa straw poll occurs, and even could be said to deal with a similar socially conservative constituency.

However, through the lens of Google Trends, there is not much evidence to suggest that the VVS straw poll filled the void left by the Ames straw poll in any meaningful way.¹



The same general trend holds for the other events that peppered the calendar throughout 2015, whether it was the straw poll earlier in the year at CPAC or the one at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference. Those events could have been stand-ins for the straw poll, but were not. In fact, in the cases of CPAC and the SRLC, those events preceded the mid-June cancelation of the Iowa straw poll in 2015.

And this speaks to something Bernstein raised in his post; what he called the stab(ility) of the rules. FHQ has often evoked the same concept but under a different banner: the regular rhythms of the presidential nomination process. I agree with Bernstein that the silliness factor involved in the Iowa straw poll was quite high. And while that is true, it also served valuable functions in both coordination and winnowing.

Yes, Iowa Republicans ended the practice for the 2016 cycle and that was as much a function of pressure from the national party (because of the Hawkeye state's perceived two bites at the apple), but also because a number of the potential candidates signaled they were not going to participate.

While that is noteworthy, the why the straw poll ended is less important than why there was nothing waiting in the wings to fill the void. After all the RNC did sanction a primary debate -- the first of the cycle -- in the same August time span in which debates had been held in Iowa roughly in conjunction with the straw poll. But that Cleveland debate was a solo event with no attendant straw poll. Count that as a missed opportunity perhaps.

Another miss could be found in the collective wisdom of the aggregated straw poll results for the 2016 cycle. Most pointed in the same directions, often elevating either Ted Cruz or Ben Carson. And just as often Scott Walker finished third.

There were, perhaps, opportunities for coordination and to force some winnowing there, but there was no effort to emphasize those events or the candidates who did well (either positively or negatively). And that was consistent with a cycle that saw some active maneuvering from the national party in the area of the nomination rules (2013-14), but was hands off other than sanctioning debates when 2015 rolled around. That is not to suggest the party and the variety of actors within the broader party coalition were silent when it came to Trump specifically. Rather, it demonstrates a break in the regular rhythms of the process and that there was no active counter to those breaks from a coordination standpoint.

One could say that there were few profiles in courage among Republicans during the 2016 cycle. But just as easily, and likely more accurately, one could also say Republican party actors were trying to maintain a delicate balance between what elites wanted out of the process (winning the White House) and what was valued by a vocal faction of the base of primary voters (ABE -- anything but the establishment). Coordinating in the face of those tensions is difficult at best, and that difficulty can give rise to unexpected results; unintended consequences even.

--
¹ The picture looks a bit better when one changes the search terms from "Value Voters Summit straw poll" to simply "Value Voters Summit", but the spikes pale in comparison to the sharp upticks around the Ames straw polls in both 2007 and 2011. The jump was actually smaller in 2015 when there was no straw poll in Iowa than it was in either 2007 or 2011 when there was.

Open Primaries, the Democrats and 2020

Early last month the Democratic National Committee-sanctioned Unity Reform Commission convened for their second meeting in San Antonio. While the agenda at the first meeting in May in Washington, DC served to provide an overview of the nomination process to the members of the commission, the San Antonio meeting was dedicated to drilling down on a couple of specific issues. Mainly, time was spent hearing from a series of presenters and discussing 1) the overlapping/diverging interests of state governments and the parties in the presidential nomination process and 2) the idea of drawing unaffiliated voters into the process.

[For more on the first meeting in Washington, see here.]

FHQ has spent (and will likely continue to spend in the future) an inordinate amount of time discussing the former agenda item, particularly through the lens of presidential primary scheduling. However, here I will focus more on the latter agenda point; those unaffiliated voters. Typically national parties, if they have weighed in at all during their nomination rules making over time, have tended move in the opposite direction. That is, the national parties have been guided by an impetus to make the nomination process one where only registered partisans participate rather than opening up the floodgates to those outside the party. The principle from the party's perspective, for better or worse, has most always been, "if you want to participate, join the party."

At the state level, the story is different and varied. There, most but not all states utilize a primary as the means of allowing voters to express their presidential preference, the results of which determine the delegate allocation to candidates. And therein lies one of those aforementioned points of overlapping jurisdiction. State parties, by opting into the government-run and funded primary cede in part some of their ability to directly determine the parameters of the election. That is clearest on something like the date of the contest. It is state governments that make that "when" determination whether or not either of the state parties is on board.

And that same relationship exists to a slightly lesser degree where participation is concerned. By opting into a state government-funded election, the state parties yield to the state government to decide which voters can participate in a partisan primary. Unlike setting the dates of those various contests, however, state parties have been more willing to challenge the extent of state government control over determining who can vote. And those challenges -- Tashjian, for starters and some of the blanket primary cases such as California Democratic Party v. Jones -- have tended to find the courts siding with the parties, emphasizing the private organizations' freedom of association protections.

But not all state parties have or have had conflicts with the decisions made by state governments. Those state parties are, on the one hand, fine with more open processes that allow them to woo independents and/or those affiliated with the other party. But on the other hand, some state parties are perfectly happy with state laws dictating a closed primary. And as Meinke, et al. (2006) found, the ideological proximity of the state party to party registrants in a state has a significant bearing how open the process is. If there is convergence between the party and rank-and-file partisans, the primaries tend to be more open. But the wider the distance between the two, the more likely it is that the state party makes some attempt to protect their position by closing off the process to partisans of their own party or limiting participation even further through a caucus/convention system of nomination.

Of course, other state parties have not challenged those conflicts at all through legal channels, opting instead to leave well enough alone or to seek a solution through advocating for legislation making the necessary changes to who can participate. A final subset of state parties have chosen to (attempt to) opt out of state-funded primaries altogether at the presidential level and on down the ballot. It was this last subset that was most active during the Obama years. Tea Party and Ron Paul-aligned state Republican parties pursued -- mostly unsuccessfully -- a path of nominating candidates via low turnout caucuses closed but for registered partisans.

Yet, that action -- state parties attempting to create a process closed to those outside the party -- was consistent with how the national parties have tended to behave (when they have sporadically chosen to attempt to intervene on the matter). In fact, in an extension of the Tea Party maneuvering of the Obama years, a proposal was discussed and debated in the Convention Rules Committee meeting preceding the 2016 Republican National Convention to provide incentives to states with closed presidential primaries.

But the Democratic Party did not follow a similar, parallel trajectory at their 2016 national convention in Philadelphia. Rather, the pressure from Sanders delegates and supporters was to open the process up. That push, along with that on other points of contention like the superdelegates issue, culminated with the charter that created the Unity Reform Commission in the first place. However, while there were clear guidelines in that charter regarding the recommendations the commission would make with respect to superdelegates, the language on the open primaries question was more passive. Mainly, that is due to the some of the complexities described above.

--
Now that the Unity Reform Commission has had this discussion, though, there are a couple of points FHQ would raise on open primaries. One is semantical. The other is a recitation on a theme I have raised a few times since primary season in 2016.

1. Open primaries?
While "open primaries" is often the shorthand used, they are not necessarily for what the Sanders folks have been pushing. And that is pretty clear in how the URC dealt with the issue. The approach of the commission was about attracting unaffiliated voters instead of an outright call for open primaries. There is some nuance there that is absent in calls for open primaries.

Categories based on National Conference of State Legislatures definitions

After all, Sanders did not fare all that well in open contests. Many of them were scattered across the South, where Clinton idd better than the Vermont senator, especially among African American voters. Looking at the wins each viable Democratic presidential aspirant had in 2016 (by contest participation type), Sanders clearly bested Clinton in states that held caucuses rather than primaries. Clinton only won in the earliest two caucuses in Iowa and Nevada. On top of that, her numbers were buoyed in the territories that held caucuses. But this was a category -- arguably the most closed of the bunch -- Sanders ironically dominated.

Sanders also had a 4:1 advantage in the states where law allowed unaffiliated voters to participate.

But Clinton dominated on either end of the spectrum in both completely closed and open primary states. The former was the true sticking point among the Sanders set as Sanders lone win in a closed primary was in the late calendar Oregon primary. The impetus of the call for change through the Unity Reform Commission, then, are those closed primaries. It is really a call fewer closed primaries or for more openness, not necessarily more open primaries.

2. Obstacles galore
Yes, this differs from what is happening on the Republican side -- the pressure there is in the opposite direction -- but that does not make a full scale change to more open primaries or incentivizing an increase in their number at the state level any more likely.

Why?

The answer lies in the fact that Democrats are in an inferior position relative to their Republican counterparts in state governments across the country. There are a lot of red and yellow stripes across the closed primary states in the map below. Republicans have unified control of more state governments, they control more state legislative chambers and they control more governor's mansions. That may change in the elections in New Jersey and Virginia later this year and/or in 2018, but that will not necessarily be clear when the Unity Reform Commission is making its recommendations (by the beginning of 2018), nor when the Rules and Bylaws Committee (and the DNC later) will finalize the 2020 rules in the late summer of 2018.

Sources: NCSL (participation type, 2017 partisan composition), New York Times (2016 Democratic results)

And even if Democrats improve their position on the state level in 2018, bringing about a change on the openness of the primaries may continue to prove difficult based on the mix of partisan control and local custom on a state by state basis. That circles back around to the Meinke, et al. conclusion above.

There is a reason the Rules Committee stalemate -- delay really -- yielded firmer guidance on the superdelegates question than on either the caucus-to-primary or open primaries questions. It was an issue the national party could more easily dictate. The latter two require some interaction with governments in the various states. And legislative action is just as difficult on the state level as it is in the national capital. It is a heavy lift and on open primaries, one that is political to say the least. Set your expectations accordingly.

The 2016 Electoral College Spectrum

Final version (certified results)

The 2016 Electoral College Spectrum1
DC-3 HI-4 (7)2	CT-7 (173)	MI-16 (248 | 306)	ME CD2-1 SC-9 (126)	TN-11 (60)
CA-55 (62)	DE-3 (176)	PA-20 (268 | 290)	AK-3 (116)	AR-6 (49)
MA-11 (73)	OR-7 (183)	WI-103 (278 | 270)	MS -6 (113)	AL-9 (43)
MD-10 (83)	NM-5 (188)	FL-29 NE CD2-1 (260)	UT-6 (107)	SD-3 (34)
VT-3 (86)	VA-13 (201)	AZ-11 (230)	MO-10 (101)	KY-8 (31)
NY-29 (115)	CO-9 (210)	NC-15 (219)	IN-11 (91)	ID-4 (23)
IL-20 (135)	ME-2 (212)	GA-16 (204)	LA-8 (80)	ND-3 (19)
WA-12 (147)	NV-6 (218)	OH-18 (188)	MT-3 (72)	OK-7 (16)
RI-4 (151)	MN-10 (228)	TX-38 (170)	KS-6 NE CD1-1 (69)	WV-5 (9)
ME CD1-1 NJ-14 (166)	NH-4 (232)	IA-6 (132)	NE-2 (62)	WY-3 NE CD3-1 (4)
1 Follow the link for a detailed explanation on how to read the Electoral College Spectrum. 2 The numbers in the parentheses refer to the number of electoral votes a candidate would have if he or she won all the states ranked prior to that state. If, for example, Clinton won all the states up to and including Wisconsin (Trump's toss up states through Wisconsin), she would have 278 electoral votes. Clinton's numbers are only totaled through the states she would need in order to get to 270. In those cases, Clinton's number is on the left and Trump's is on the right in bold italics. 3 Wisconsin is the state where Trump crossed the 270 electoral vote threshold to win the presidential election, the tipping point state. The tipping point cell is shaded in yellow to denote that and the font color is adjusted to attempt to reflect the category in which the state is.

2016 Election Night

11/28/16 3:30pm:
The Michigan results are certified, handing the Great Lakes state to Trump.

11/14/16 5:30pm:
The Trump camp failed to request a recount in New Hampshire before the 5pm deadline. Clinton takes the Granite state's four electoral votes.

11/10/16 7:45pm:
Arizona added to Trump's column.

11/9/16 11:30am:
The AP calls Minnesota for Clinton. That is a narrow hold for Democrats.

11/9/16 2:40am:
Wisconsin puts Trump over the top; another flip for the Republican.

11/9/16 2:15am:
Alaska stays in the Republican column.

11/9/16 2:10am:
And the second congressional district in Nebraska is called for Trump.

11/9/16 2am:
The Maine call is in and we have the second electoral vote split in the Maine/Nebraska era. Maine's second congressional district follows Nebraska's second district in 2008 in going against the statewide result. Clinton wins the state and CD1 while Trump takes CD2.

11/9/16 1:40pm:
Pennsylvania flips to Trump. That 20 electoral votes puts Trump within range of 270 (and with some networks having called Wisconsin for him).

11/9/16 12:25am:
Clinton holds Nevada.

11:35pm:
Trump flips Iowa; something that has been in the cards since at least the conventions. Trump also holds Georgia after a lengthy wait.

11:25pm:
Utah goes for Trump. He will lag behind Romney there, but still take the Beehive state with relative ease.

11:15pm:
North Carolina is a Republican hold for Trump. Oregon is another non-Rust Belt leaner to stay with the Democrats.

11pm:
The next round of closings out west put California, Hawaii and Washington into the Clinton category. Trump takes Idaho. The close night in the Rust Belt extends to the electoral vote count for the time being.

10:55pm:
Florida follows Ohio as a Trump flip. Understatement alert: That is a big one.

10:40pm:
Colorado stays in the blue column. The outside the Rust Belt/midwest leaners are falling into place for Clinton. Those in that region are tighter.

10:25pm:
Ohio goes to Trump and Virginia to Clinton. One of those is bigger symbolically than the other.

10:10pm:
Missouri to Trump and New Mexico to Clinton.

10pm:
Closings in Arizona, Iowa, Nevada, and Utah. No calls. Montana to Trump.

9:30pm:
Arkansas and Louisiana turn red and Connecticut falls into Clinton's column.

9:00pm:
An extended radio hit pulled FHQ away. We will feel in the gaps in time. As for now a big jump for both candidates.

7:30pm:
West Virginia to Trump. North Carolina and Ohio are too close to call as of now.

7:00pm:
Wasting no time, Indiana and Kentucky go Trump and Vermont is added to Clinton's column.

6:00pm:
Let's color this thing in. FHQ will have maps and comments both here and on twitter (@FHQ) all evening.

--
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The Electoral College Map (11/8/16) -- Election Day

Changes (11/8/16):

Election Day.

As there were only a few more polls added to the mix on the final day of the 2016 campaign -- or in just under the wire yesterday -- there were only a few subtle changes to the figures here at FHQ. 

• South Carolina pushed past Texas toward the partisan line on the Electoral College Spectrum below, but neither will budge from the Trump column. Both had at various points shown to be much closer than normal. Neither, however, will end up anywhere other than red as the results trickle in. 
• Wisconsin once again traded spots with Michigan on the Spectrum. Similar to the two Trump states above, neither state seems poised to jump the partisan line away from Clinton. The trajectory of the race has headed in that general direction here at the end, but it is likely that that was more consolidation of partisan support (for Trump) than any wholesale shift away from Clinton or the Democrats. The temptation is there to suggest that the tightening in states like Michigan and Wisconsin is perhaps a reversion to the pre-Obama mean for the pair. Yet, that simply is not the case. Both are within range of exactly where they were in the Obama-Romney race four years ago.
• The map and Watch List remained unchanged from a day ago.  

Changes since June 13 (first map of the cycle):

Rather than a noisy race, the opposite occurred instead. It has been a steady race through the lens of the graduated weighted average FHQ utilizes. Yes, that is largely a function of methodology. As the dataset grows -- as the number of polls increase -- shocks become less likely. Note, however, that even with the pedestrian methodology and the limitations it carries, FHQ ended up where a great many of the more sophisticated models are. We will have more on this in the aftermath of the election, but for now, what has changed since June:

• The map always seemingly had 2012 as a jumping off point. Most presidential elections tend to build on the previous elections. The order of states remains largely the same and the movement tends to be more of a uniform shift one way or the other (with exceptions -- see Utah, 2016).
• If 2012 was the starting point, then the first map was the 2012 Obama states plus North Carolina and Arizona. Arizona pushed back across the partisan line toward Trump around the conventions and settled in. North Carolina did not. There have been fluctuations from one poll to another in the Tar Heel state, but it, too, settled into the Clinton column. 
• Arizona was not alone in jumping the partisan line over the last few months. The general election campaign witnessed Iowa cross the partisan line into the red and never really look back. Ohio, here at FHQ anyway, was more resistant. While the Buckeye state hopped the partisan line into Trump territory just yesterday, the second debate -- the town hall debate immediately after the Access Hollywood tape was released -- was the turning point in Ohio. The polls shifted toward Trump after that point and the average here shrunk smaller and smaller over time. 
• One final change in comparing the first and last maps was the addition of the congressional districts in Maine and Nebraska. FHQ had not previously focused any on any of them, but added them since there was some data. We will confess that it was probably not enough data, but they were added nonetheless. Adding them did shift what had been a reliably electoral vote under the statewide distribution from Maine's second congressional district to Trump's total. 
• The tipping point state has changed over time as well. Virginia was the initial spot where either Clinton or Trump would have crossed 270 electoral votes, but that changed a number of times and often included pairs of states as things split at 269-269 over the summer. That settled down later as the order of the states along the Lean/Toss Up line on the Clinton side of the Spectrum reshuffled. Colorado has been in that position since just before the first debate. And bear in mind, while the states have changed, the position of the tipping point state has not. The order has been that stable. 

Incorrect Projections?

• FHQ has the least confidence in a few areas. First, Ohio is very close; the closest of all the states here at FHQ. It would not be a surprise if if jumped back over the partisan line into Clinton's column. At the same time, that is not what we are predicting. 
• Second, the lack of data from Maine's second congressional district does not inspire confidence. The recent polling has favored Clinton by narrow margins, but a handful of Trump-favorable outliers from the late summer -- even when discounted in the weighted average -- still has that one tipped toward Trump here at FHQ.
• Tough-to-poll Nevada is always a bit of a problem child. It has been biased toward the Republican (compared to the final results) in each of the last two cycles. It would not be a shock if the Silver state is not a more comfortable win for Clinton. But again, that is not the prediction here. 

--

NOTE: A description of the methodology behind the graduated weighted average of 2016 state-level polling that FHQ uses for these projections can be found here.

Final FHQ Margins -- 11/8/16
State	Margin	Rating
Alabama	+20.86	Strong Trump
Alaska	+5.59	Lean Trump
Arizona	+1.73	Toss Up Trump
Arkansas	+18.46	Strong Trump
California	+22.89	Strong Clinton
Colorado	+3.83	Toss Up Clinton
Connecticut	+12.45	Strong Clinton
Delaware	+13.19	Strong Clinton
Florida	+1.87	Toss Up Clinton
Georgia	+3.17	Toss Up Trump
Hawaii	+28.24	Strong Clinton
Idaho	+24.19	Strong Trump
Illinois	+15.07	Strong Clinton
Indiana	+9.71	Lean Trump
Iowa	+1.33	Toss Up Trump
Kansas	+12.50	Strong Trump
Kentucky	+19.70	Strong Trump
Louisiana	+12.71	Strong Trump
Maine	+6.74	Lean Clinton
Maine CD1	+15.08	Strong Clinton
Maine CD2	+3.05	Toss Up Trump
Maryland	+28.12	Strong Clinton
Massachusetts	+23.92	Strong Clinton
Michigan	+6.46	Lean Clinton
Minnesota	+7.39	Lean Clinton
Mississippi	+10.69	Strong Trump
Missouri	+8.02	Lean Trump
Montana	+14.16	Strong Trump
Nebraska	+19.42	Strong Trump
Nevada	+0.81	Toss Up Clinton
New Hampshire	+4.82	Toss Up Clinton
New Jersey	+11.79	Strong Clinton
New Mexico	+6.58	Lean Clinton
New York	+19.73	Strong Clinton
North Carolina	+1.36	Toss Up Clinton
North Dakota	+19.01	Strong Trump
Ohio	+0.14	Toss Up Trump
Oklahoma	+24.96	Strong Trump
Oregon	+9.01	Lean Clinton
Pennsylvania	+4.86	Toss Up Clinton
Rhode Island	+12.52	Strong Clinton
South Carolina	+7.50	Lean Trump
South Dakota	+12.03	Strong Trump
Tennessee	+14.50	Strong Trump
Texas	+7.52	Lean Trump
Utah	+9.97	Lean Trump
Vermont	+24.07	Strong Clinton
Virginia	+6.12	Lean Clinton
Washington	+12.77	Strong Clinton
Washington, DC	+65.00	Strong Clinton
West Virginia	+24.76	Strong Trump
Wisconsin	+6.36	Lean Clinton
Wyoming	+35.69	Strong Trump

The Electoral College Spectrum1
HI-42 (7)	RI-4 (162)	NH-4 (263)	SC-9 (161)	TN-11 (61)
MD-10 (17)	NJ-14 (176)	CO-94 (272 | 275)	TX-38 (152)	AR-6 (50)
VT-3 (20)	OR-7 (183)	FL-29 (301 | 266)	MO-10 (114)	ND-3 (44)
MA-11 (31)	MN-10 (193)	NC-15 (316 | 237)	IN-11 (104)	NE-53 (41)
CA-55 (86)	ME-23 (195)	NV-6 (322 | 222)	UT-6 (93)	KY-8 (36)
NY-29 (115)	NM-5 (200)	OH-18 (216)	MS-6 (87)	AL-9 (28)
IL-20+13 (136)	MI-16 (216)	IA-6 (198)	SD-3 (81)	ID-4 (19)
DE-3 (139)	WI-10 (226)	AZ-11 (192)	KS-6 (78)	WV-5 (15)
WA-12 (151)	VA-13 (239)	GA-16+13 (181)	LA-8 (72)	OK-7 (10)
CT-7 (158)	PA-20 (259)	AK-3 (164)	MT-3 (64)	WY-3 (3)
1 Follow the link for a detailed explanation on how to read the Electoral College Spectrum. 2 The numbers in the parentheses refer to the number of electoral votes a candidate would have if he or she won all the states ranked prior to that state. If, for example, Trump won all the states up to and including Colorado (all Clinton's toss up states plus Colorado), he would have 275 electoral votes. Trump's numbers are only totaled through the states he would need in order to get to 270. In those cases, Clinton's number is on the left and Trumps's is on the right in bold italics. To keep the figure to 50 cells, Washington, DC and its three electoral votes are included in the beginning total on the Democratic side of the spectrum. The District has historically been the most Democratic state in the Electoral College. 3 Maine and Nebraska allocate electoral college votes to candidates in a more proportional manner. The statewide winner receives the two electoral votes apportioned to the state based on the two US Senate seats each state has. Additionally, the winner within a congressional district is awarded one electoral vote. Given current polling, all five Nebraska electoral votes would be allocated to Trump. In Maine, a split seems more likely. Trump leads in Maine's second congressional district while Clinton is ahead statewide and in the first district. She would receive three of the four Maine electoral votes and Trump the remaining electoral vote. Those congressional district votes are added approximately where they would fall in the Spectrum above. 4 Colorado is the state where Clinton crosses the 270 electoral vote threshold to win the presidential election. That line is referred to as the victory line. Currently, Colorado is in the Toss Up Clinton category.

NOTE: Distinctions are made between states based on how much they favor one candidate or another. States with a margin greater than 10 percent between Clinton and Trump are "Strong" states. Those with a margin of 5 to 10 percent "Lean" toward one of the two (presumptive) nominees. Finally, states with a spread in the graduated weighted averages of both the candidates' shares of polling support less than 5 percent are "Toss Up" states. The darker a state is shaded in any of the figures here, the more strongly it is aligned with one of the candidates. Not all states along or near the boundaries between categories are close to pushing over into a neighboring group. Those most likely to switch -- those within a percentage point of the various lines of demarcation -- are included on the Watch List below.

The Watch List1
State	Switch
Alaska	from Lean Trump	to Toss Up Trump
Indiana	from Lean Trump	to Strong Trump
Mississippi	from Strong Trump	to Lean Trump
Nevada	from Toss Up Clinton	to Toss Up Trump
New Hampshire	from Toss Up Clinton	to Lean Clinton
Ohio	from Toss Up Trump	to Toss Up Clinton
Oregon	from Lean Clinton	to Strong Clinton
Pennsylvania	from Toss Up Clinton	to Lean Clinton
Utah	from Lean Trump	to Strong Trump
1 Graduated weighted average margin within a fraction of a point of changing categories.

Recent Posts:
The Electoral College Map (11/7/16)

The Electoral College Map (11/6/16)

The Electoral College Map (11/5/16)

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