The real reason Donald Trump is putting down so many of his 2020 election chips on Pennsylvania

| 9:09 am EDT May 22, 2019
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Even as Donald Trump’s impeachment becomes more of an inevitability by the hour, and it becomes more clear that the courts are going to allow Trump’s financial institutions to turn over his financial records to the House, the 2020 presidential election is still playing out in its early stages – and for now at least, Trump is the presumptive Republican nominee. Accordingly, he’s expending quite an effort in Pennsylvania. There’s a reason for that.

Back in the 2016 election, the final Real Clear Politics polling average had Hillary Clinton winning Pennsylvania by 2.1 points. Donald Trump ended up winning it by 0.7 points. So the polls were off by 2.8 points, which means they were accurate within their own stated margin of error. That’s not much comfort to those who were rooting for Trump to lose. But the point is that, even with voter suppression and Russian hackers moving the needle a bit, they weren’t off by all that much. That brings us to 2018, where the latest polling shows that Trump is behind in Pennsylvania by an eye popping eleven points.

To be more specific, Trump is currently eleven points behind Joe Biden in Pennsylvania. Various other 2020 Democratic candidates are also polling well ahead of Trump in the state, but by smaller margins. That said, if any of them rise in national popularity enough to overtake Biden as the nominee, it stands to reason that their popularity in Pennsylvania would rise accordingly. And no, the polls aren’t going to be off anything close to eleven percent – so if the election were held today, Trump would get blown out in Pennsylvania.

It’s not just that he’s losing badly in Pennsylvania. It’s that if he loses badly there, he’ll likely also lose in other electorally similar states like Ohio and Michigan, which would give him no path to victory. Of course the election is a year and a half away, and a lot can change. But the point is that as of today, Trump couldn’t be in a much worse position when it comes to reelection – and Pennsylvania is the epicenter of his problems.

The numbers make clear that Donald Trump has lost a very large number of supporters in Pennsylvania in two and a half years. In order to have any chance of winning the state, he’ll either have to win those people back, or he’ll have to hope that Democratic-leaning voters turn out in historically low numbers for the eventual Democratic nominee. Either would be a major task to pull off. No wonder he’s suddenly obsessed with Pennsylvania. Then again, holding one rally in the state, before heading home and going back to tweeting random insults at those who are exposing his crimes, isn’t exactly a comprehensive strategy.