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Democrat Joe Biden leads President Donald Trump in the polls ahead of the US presidential election on November 3.
The debates are over, tens of millions of Americans have already cast their votes, and the 77-year-old former vice president appears to be on his way to the White House.
Not so fast.
The 74-year-old Trump has several potential routes to victory, the most likely going through the states of Florida and Pennsylvania.
She lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton in 2016 by nearly three million votes and is likely to lose it to Biden as well.
But the US presidential elections are not decided by popular vote.
They are decided by the 538-member Electoral College and Trump could find a way to gather enough electoral votes to win.
Each of the 50 US states plus Washington DC has a number of electoral votes equal to the number of members of the House of Representatives plus its two senators.
California, with 55 electoral votes, is the top prize followed by Texas with 38, Florida and New York with 29 each, and Pennsylvania with 20.
Except in Maine and Nebraska, all electoral votes in a state are assigned to the winner of the popular vote in the state.
A candidate needs 270 electoral votes to win the White House.
‘Plausible’
According to polls and experts, Trump is virtually certain of winning 163 electoral votes from the solidly Republican states that last voted for him.
Biden seems poised for at least 260 electoral votes, including two states Trump won last time: Michigan and Wisconsin.
But Trump can afford to lose those two Midwestern states and still achieve a victory on November 3.
“If Donald Trump wins every state he won last time with the exception of Wisconsin and Michigan and keeps Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Arizona and Florida, he wins,” said Capri Cafaro, a former Democratic member of the Ohio State Senate.
“It goes to 270,” said Cafaro, who is now an executive in residence at American University. “And that’s plausible. It’s very, very possible.”
The RealClearPolitics (RCP) political tracking website shows extremely close races in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Arizona, and Florida.
The RCP state poll average has Biden 2.4 points ahead of Trump in Arizona, with 0.4 points in Florida and 0.7 points in North Carolina.
“Pennsylvania is key because otherwise it will be difficult for Trump to gather enough electoral votes,” Cafaro said.
Biden has a 4.3-point lead in Pennsylvania, according to the RCP poll average in the state of Keystone, which has 20 electoral votes.
Trump won Pennsylvania by just 44,000 votes in 2016 and his re-election hopes may hinge on taking over the state again.
But Biden’s campaign has also devoted considerable resources to Pennsylvania, sending its heavy hitter, former President Barack Obama, there for his first campaign appearance.
And in a sign that the president faces an uphill climb this time, the RCP’s poll averages also show close races in several states Trump won in 2016, including Georgia, Iowa, Ohio and Texas.
Trump repeatedly denounces the polls as inaccurate, but has taken time out of 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 in which every electoral vote counts, Trump has also visited both Nebraska and Maine, states where only one electoral vote can be in the balance.
Unlike the other 48 states and Washington DC, the five electoral votes in Nebraska and the four electoral votes in Maine are divided between the winner of the popular vote in the state and the winners of each of its constituencies.
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 hosts a very close congressional race – and the lone electoral vote that goes with it.
Read more stories about the 2020 U.S. elections
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