Hillary leads, Trump takes baby steps towards 'I, 270'

WASHINGTON: Interstate 270 (I-270) is an auxiliary highway leading out of the Maryland suburbs of Greater Washington into Pennsylvania, Ohio, and further into the heart of America, an arterial road running horizontally through the middle of continental USA. As it turns out, 270 is also the number of Electoral College votes a candidate needs to enter the White House as President; both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump will be aiming for “I, 270" on November 8.

Just for a moment, forget polls that put candidates variously at 43-37, 49-39, 50-50 per cent popular votes, based on national sample size of about 800-1000. The popular votes are less consequential than Electoral College votes, and each state has a certain number of electoral votes, equal to the number of seats in the House of Representatives (435) plus the number of seats in Senate (100), plus three extra votes from Washington DC as a special dispensation.

Thus California has 55 electoral votes (53+2) and Texas has 38 (36+2); Montana has just 3 (1+2) as does Vermont (1+2). All states have two senators each but the number of House seats is based on population. In most cases, all electoral votes from a state go to a candidate who wins the popular vote.

So in the race for 270 electoral votes (270 is a majority of 538 from 435+100+3), some states such as California and New York are certifiably in the Democratic column, giving them a headstart with 217 electoral votes (from 18 states). Some states (around 22) are unshakeable Republican strongholds, giving them 191 electoral votes (because they are smaller states).

So the presidential election is essentially fought in around 10 battleground states whose 130 electoral votes determine who reaches the magic number of 270.

Consequently , both Clinton and Trump are concentrating on these 10 states -Florida (29 electoral votes), Pennsylvania (20), Ohio (18), North Carolina (15), Virginia (13), Wisconsin (10), Colorado (9), Iowa and Nevada (6 each), New Hampshire (4).

Occasionally, a candidate may believe he can shake a rival stronghold; Trump briefly thought he could take a stab at California, a state that last voted Republican in 1988 (for George Bush Sr). Similarly, some pundits believe Texas (a state that last voted Democrat in 1976; for Jimmy Carter), may fall in the blue column. But for the most past, the audacity of hope is restricted to the battleground states.

Sometimes, a candidate may believe recent events may have rendered what was previously thought to be a pocketborough vulnerable.Thus, Trump on Monday was in Michigan, which hasn't voted Republican since 1988, in the hope that his rant about America's economic downturn would resonate not just among the blue collar work force in a state that is the automobile centre, but it would also be heard in the so-called Rust Belt states (including Ohio and Pennsylvania) where a large number of American workers have lost jobs due to automation and offshoring.

But Trump himself has been inconsistent about the auto bailout that President Obama engineered to save Michigan's motor industry , giving his putative successor Hillary Clinton a comfortable 11-point (43-32) lead in the state as of last week. Poll of polls across the country computed by pundits on Monday show Trump trailing (49-39), and more worrying for the Trump campaign than the 10% deficit is the fact that he is rarely able to cross the 40% threshold.

Trump's speech would be geared towards reversing this lead and trend. But given his rambling digressions in a shambolic campaign, few expect a turnaround.

The Trump campaign had earlier indicated that he would announce a major economic initiative, proposing an “all child care“ expenses for American families to be tax deductible (Hillary's plan allows only expenses of 10% of income to be deductible).

But those are just baby steps on Trump's road to “I, 270" in a scenario where Hillary has the easier passage; he'll need to do a lot more to appeal to the rest of America beyond his disgruntled, angry white male constituency.