Opinion

Guest Essay

Illustration by Akshita Chandra/The New York Times; Images by PhotoObjects.net, Yuji Sakai, and THEPALMER/Getty Images

By Doug Sosnik
Graphics by Quoctrung Bui

Mr. Sosnik was a senior adviser to President Bill Clinton from 1994 to 2000 and has advised over 50 governors and U.S. senators.

While polls show the race for president is tightening, Joe Biden still has a narrower and more challenging path to winning the election than Donald Trump. The reason is the Electoral College: My analysis of voter history and polling shows a map that currently favors Mr. Trump, even though recent developments in Arizona improve Mr. Biden’s chances. The Biden campaign will need to decide this summer which states to contest hardest. Our Electoral College maps below lay out the best scenarios for him and Mr. Trump.

Seven states with close results determined who won both the 2020 and the 2016 presidential elections, and those same seven states will most likely play the same battleground role this fall: three industrial states – Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – and four Sun Belt states – Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina.

Wis.

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Wis.

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Mr. Biden’s declining popularity in the Sun Belt states is the main reason Mr. Trump has an edge right now. He is especially struggling with young and nonwhite voters there. Let’s take a closer look:

According to 2020 exit polls, Mr. Biden won 65 percent of Latino voters, who comprised roughly a fifth of voters in Arizona and Nevada. And Mr. Biden won 87 percent of Black voters, who made up 29 percent of the Georgia vote and 23 percent of the North Carolina vote. He also won 60 percent of voters aged 18 to 29. Now look at this year: A New York Times/Siena College poll released last weekend showed support for Mr. Biden had dropped 18 points with Black voters, 15 points with Latinos and 14 points with younger voters nationally.

Abortion could be a decisive issue in Mr. Biden stemming this erosion of support in Arizona and Nevada. The Arizona Supreme Court’s ruling last week that largely bans abortions raises the stakes of a likely ballot initiative on the issue there in November. It also appears........

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