President Donald Trump will need to overcome significant deficits in key states from early voting and mail-in ballots in order to win reelection, officials from Joe Biden’s campaign said on Tuesday morning.
“Trump has such a harder hill to climb today to overcome the advantage we came into today with,” said Jennifer O’Malley Dillon after going through the campaign’s data showing the Democratic presidential nominee ahead going into Election Day in key swing states.
O’Malley Dillon, speaking on campaign livestream to reporters and supporters, presented internal data showing Biden with advantages in the vote in Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Georgia, Wisconsin, Arizona and Michigan. The Trump campaign would essentially need to sweep all of those states to win the 270 votes necessary to claim an Electoral College victory.
She estimated that Trump needed to win 59% of the Election Day vote in Pennsylvania to pull off an upset victory there, well above what he won on Election Day in 2016. Per O’Malley Dillon, he would need 61% of the vote in Wisconsin, compared to the 53% he won on Election Day four years ago. In North Carolina, he would need to win 62% of the Election Day vote, well above the 56% he won four years earlier. In Arizona, the campaign said Biden had picked up 53% of the vote so far and predicted Trump would need to get 60% of Election Day voters to triumph there.
The campaign was somewhat less optimistic about Florida and Texas. In Florida, the Biden campaign believes Trump would need to hit 56% of the Election Day vote ― almost exactly what he earned four years ago. In Texas, the campaign estimated only 49% of early voters backed Biden and noted that 53% of voters backed Trump on Election Day in 2016.
“We continue to have a multitude of pathways to 270 electoral votes,” O’Malley Dillon said, contrasting Biden’s chances with Trump’s need to draw the political equivalent of an inside straight.
Public surveys have long indicated that more Democrats intended to vote early or by mail this year, while more Republicans planned to vote in person because of Trump’s false attacks on the reliability of mail-in ballots.
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