Harris and Trump's most likely paths to victory in battleground states

Vice President Harris and former President Trump both have multiple paths to victory in their bids to get 270 electoral votes.

The candidates are zeroing in on the seven key battleground states that will most likely decide which candidate will win the presidency in November. Adding to the stakes of the final weeks, the race is razor-tight in all seven states with neither candidate leading by more than 2 points on average.

The candidates are being confronted with a math problem of stringing together enough states to get to 270 votes to clinch a win.

Here are Harris and Trump’s most likely paths to victory in the Electoral College:

Harris wins in the ‘blue wall’ states

Taking the three states that make up the “blue wall” that flipped to Trump in 2016 and flipped back in 2020 appeared to be President Biden’s best chance of winning while he was still running, and it may be the simplest path for Harris as well.

This path would be the narrowest possible margin of victory in the Electoral College for Harris, fitting for an election that has consistently been close since she entered the race and that has only tightened in recent weeks.

If Harris takes the Rust Belt states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin while Trump carries the Sun Belt states of Nevada, Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina, Harris would win with the minimum possible number of electoral votes, 270, to Trump’s 268.

Key to this path would be Harris also carrying one electoral vote from Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District. Nebraska is one of two states that distributes its votes by the results of each congressional district, and the 2nd district has seemed to lean toward Harris, though polling of the district has been significantly limited.

Harris expands on Biden’s 2020 victory

The most hopeful scenario for Democrats that certainly seems within Harris’s potential grasp is that she wins the states that President Biden took four years ago and adds in one more where he fell short: North Carolina.

The polling appears to suggest it’s at least possible, as Harris is either slightly ahead or within range in all seven states. That is a significant improvement compared to Biden toward the end of his candidacy, when he seemed to be falling behind, especially in the Sun Belt.

If she does win all seven, Harris would claim 319 electoral votes, the most for a presidential candidate since then-President Obama’s reelection win in 2012. Trump would be exactly 100 votes behind her at 219.

And the odds are in favor that at least one state has a different result compared to the last election. The same states have never all voted for the same party two consecutive elections in a row throughout U.S. history, though this year seems to make that situation seem somewhat more likely than other years.

Harris loses Pennsylvania but finds an alternative

If any one state is likely to be most crucial to the candidates’ chances and the tipping point of the election, it’s Pennsylvania.

It has 19 electoral votes, more than any of the other swing states, and has received the most attention from Trump and Harris. More advertising money is set to be spent in Pennsylvania in the final weeks of the election than any other state, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact.

Having Pennsylvania in her column would be a big boost for Harris, especially as Michigan and Wisconsin at least until recently were showing stronger polls for her than in the Keystone State.

But if Harris falls short there, she does have some other options. Both North Carolina and Georgia have almost as many electoral votes with 16 each, and Democrats have been particularly hopeful about North Carolina as the most likely flip opportunity from 2020.

If Harris can hold on in Michigan and Wisconsin and the candidates at least split North Carolina and Georgia, she would need just one of the states in the west of Arizona and Nevada, the latter of which the Decision Desk HQ/The Hill forecast model currently gives her the best chance in.

Trump takes Pennsylvania and the election

If Trump does carry Pennsylvania, he would have several more paths to reaching 270 than Harris.

The simplest way to do so is string together Pennsylvania with the other two states that are the most electorally valuable, Georgia and North Carolina. That would get him to exactly 270.

But even if Harris is able to take one of the two, she would still need to win at least three of the four remaining states to pull off a win, while Trump would only need two. Harris could win Georgia and North Carolina, but they appear to be a slightly farther reach than Pennsylvania at the moment.

The DDHQ/The Hill model gives Trump roughly a 65 percent chance in both states, still toss-ups, but he is the slight favorite. Pennsylvania is almost exactly 50-50.

Pennsylvania also has the greatest influence on FiveThirtyEight’s model forecasting probabilities for each candidate depending on what state they win. If Trump wins the state, he would win the election in 86 of 100 simulated scenarios.

Trump ekes by without Pennsylvania

Losing Pennsylvania would be a big blow to either candidate’s chances, but Trump, like Harris, could also get by without it.

If Trump wins the three states where the DDHQ model gives him the best chance currently, North Carolina, Georgia and Arizona, he would need to pick off either of the remaining blue wall states to pass 270 electoral votes.

If he takes North Carolina and Georgia along with the next most electorally valuable state, Michigan, he would need to win just one more of Arizona, Wisconsin or Nevada to clinch the White House. This would be a relatively unlikely scenario where Nevada and its six electoral votes could be the tipping point.

The more likely path would be Trump managing to put together a group of states with double digit votes to make up for dropping Pennsylvania’s 19.

Trump sweeps the battlegrounds

As Biden was faltering in the polls, Trump’s possible paths to victory expanded, making all seven battlegrounds appear easily within his grasp. While Harris has performed much better than Biden and has a clear shot at each one, a Trump sweep remains possible.

If Trump did take all seven, he would win 312 electoral votes to Harris’s 226, making 2024 a larger electoral vote win for the victor than either Trump’s first election in 2016 or his defeat in 2020.

This scenario may be particularly more likely if Trump outperforms what the polling says as he did to a certain extent in the past two elections. The former president pulled off an upset win in 2016 after most analysts expected Hillary Clinton to prevail, and polling overestimated the margin of Biden’s win by an even larger amount four years ago.

If he outperforms the polling this year by just a little bit, that could be enough to give him the advantage in each battleground.

But pollsters have warned against presuming Trump will outperform the polls in 2024 as each election cycle is different and they have adjusted their methods to better account for past misses.