Donald Trump’s victory in the 2016 presidential election was perhaps the most stunning upset in modern American political history. Though he lost the popular vote — amassing 2.9 million fewer votes than Democratic rival Hillary Clinton — Trump won the White House through a series of narrow victories in a handful of closely contested states. Whether or not the president can pull off a similar feat in November 2020 remains to be seen.
Currently, Trump remains the apparent front-runner in the majority of states he won in the previous election, but not all. Democratic nominee Joe Biden currently appears to have an advantage in several of these states.
Using data from FiveThirtyEight, a polling aggregation platform, 24/7 Wall St. determined who would most likely win the states that went to Trump in 2016, if the election were held today.
Of course, the election is not today, and much can change in the weeks leading up to Nov. 3. At this juncture in the 2016 presidential election, Clinton had a slight advantage over Trump in the national polls as well as a strong lead in places like Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin — so-called “Blue Wall” states that had not gone to a Republican presidential candidate since the 1980s. Clinton ended up losing each of those states — and the election along with them.
Biden is also currently leading in these states. If, unlike Clinton, he can maintain that edge and also win the same states his Democratic predecessor won four years earlier, he will become the next president of the United States.
One factor that could prove decisive in several of the states on this list is voter turnout. Participation rates among eligible voters can fluctuate from one election to another, and motivation among likely voters remains a critical unknown factor going into Election Day. Voter turnout tends to fluctuate more among Democratic voters — and as has been the case in recent presidential elections, and high voter turnout will likely benefit the Democratic Party in 2020. Here is a look at the states with the highest voter turnout.
Click here to see who would win red states if the election was today
Click here to read our methodology
Source: Read Full Article