Donald Trump raised a few eyebrows when he scheduled campaign events Monday and Tuesday during the final week before the election in Michigan and Wisconsin, two so-called “battleground” states where polling unequivocally favors his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton.
“Surely he would be better off camping out in places where the polls are closer, such as Florida, Nevada, North Carolina, and Ohio — that’s what many Republican strategists believe,” wrote the New Yorker’s John Cassidy, who suggested Trump’s appeal to non-college educated white voters in Michigan and Wisconsin, where they take up a large portion of the electorate, has just not been effective.
“The Trump campaign, though, is operating according to its own logic, or illogic,” he added.
Polling certainly does seem to support this point: RealClearPolitics’ average of polls shows Trump down 7 and 5.7 in Michigan and Wisconsin respectively. Precedent too stands in Trump’s way. Michigan hasn’t voted for a Republican since 1988; in Wisconsin it was 1984.
But at least one polling analyst sees “justifiable” evidence that the GOP nominee’s gamble is a good one.
In a post on his election prediction website on Tuesday, FiveThirtyEight, polling guru Nate Silver said Michigan and Wisconsin have a good shot at swinging the election in the GOP nominee’s favor, if the election is tight. He explained that if the popular vote is within 2 percentage points, the probability of Trump taking Wisconsin is 38 percent, and 37 percent in Michigan.
Silver cautioned that if Trump loses the popular vote by 3 to 5 points, then his chances drop to 7 percent in both states. In fact, he said, Clinton is “almost certainly going to win” if she’s ahead 3 to 4 percent nationally.
But, the pollster noted, Trump doesn’t have much of a choice but to take this risk because the battleground state math currently isn’t adding up to him getting the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win. It is “100 percent strategically correct for Trump to be campaigning in states such as Michigan and Wisconsin,” Silver stressed.
As for Clinton’s campaign gambles, Silver said the former secretary of state’s efforts to woo typically red Arizona are “dubious.”
Clinton’s campaign unleashed an October blitz in the Grand Canyon State, where the Arizona Republic, the state’s largest newspaper, endorsed Clinton, venerable Sen. John McCain withdrew his support of Trump after a 2005 lewd video leak, and the Hispanic population (which typically votes Democrat) is over 30 percent. After pledging $2 million dollars and sending her surrogates Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and first lady Michelle Obama to rally support in Arizona last month, Clinton will rally there on Wednesday.
Yet, according to Silver’s model, Trump’s chances remain strong in Arizona, even in a close race. Silver reported that Trump has 91 percent chance of winning the state if the popular vote is within 2 percentage points, and 68 percent if he loses popular vote by 3 to 5 points.
“If you want to debate a campaign’s geographic planning, Hillary Clinton spending time in Arizona is a much worse decision than Trump hanging out in Michigan or Wisconsin,” Silver said.
