Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee, would enter the general election with a decided advantage in the Electoral College this November. But the possibility of a scrambled map — particularly toss-ups in Florida, Iowa, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia — leaves supporters of presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump hopeful.
So ABC News dug through states’ voting history, demographic shifts and head-to-head polling to develop these electoral ratings. ABC News’ electoral map puts Clinton at 262 electoral votes and Trump at 191, when including both solid and leaning states. Eighty-five electoral votes are in toss-up states.
Still, this nomination process has shown that this election cycle can be unpredictable, and Trump has vowed to shake up the traditional map and put several blue states in play. A candidate needs 270 electoral votes to win the White House.
Despite Trump’s hopes of putting New York’s 29 electoral votes in play this election, the Empire State would be expected to pull for Clinton, along with other reliably liberal-leaning swaths of the mid-Atlantic. Most of the rest of the historically liberal Northeast would likely remain solidly Democratic in November. In the Midwest, Minnesota and Illinois would likely deliver Clinton a combined 30 electoral votes.
California, which boasts the largest share of electoral votes, at 55, has not voted Republican since George H.W. Bush in 1988. Recent polling there shows Clinton leading Trump by double digits, keeping the Golden State safely in the Democratic column, along with Oregon and Washington. New Mexico is predicted to vote Democratic for the third consecutive presidential election.
Five more states across the Mountain West and Rust Belt would give Clinton another 61 electoral votes, but Trump is hopeful that he could pick off at least of one them. Colorado and Nevada both voted for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, and growing Hispanic populations in both states may keep these states in the blue column for good.
Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania are usually reliably Democratic states, but Trump’s popularity among working-class whites may put these states in play. But a win would be an upset for Trump: Democrats have won every presidential race in Michigan and Pennsylvania since 1992 and Wisconsin since 1988.
Six toss-up states, worth 85 electoral votes, could tip the election Clinton’s way, as Trump would likely need to win nearly all those states in order to reach the White House. Ohio will be one of the key states to watch: The Buckeye State has voted for the winner of the White House every year since 1960.
Other toss-up states this year include large electoral vote prizes like Florida, North Carolina and Virginia, all of which were decided by fewer than 4 percentage points in the 2012 election. Iowa and New Hampshire, which kicked off the primary voting season, could also go either way in this year’s presidential race.
Georgia has voted for the Republican nominee in seven of the last eight presidential elections, but white voters are quickly making up a smaller proportion of active registered voters in the state. White voters made up 68 percent of registered voters in 2004, but they now make up only 58 percent of registered voters, according to data from the Pew Research Center.
Missouri is typically a Republican state, but a March poll from Fort Hays University puts Clinton and Trump within the margin of error there. And Arizona, which has gone red in nine of the last 10 presidential elections, may be moving to the middle. The growing Hispanic population could put the state into the blue column for the first time since 1996. These three states are worth a combined 37 electoral votes.
The bulk of Trump’s electoral votes would likely come from historically Republican portions of the Great Plains, West and Midwest, as well as the Bible Belt, which stretches from South Carolina to Texas and boasts large numbers of evangelical Christian and social conservative voters.
West Virginia, which has seen unemployment levels rise under Obama, is expected to vote Republican for the fifth presidential election in a row, as is Alaska, which has not voted for a Democrat since Lyndon Johnson in 1964.
June 17: ABC News changed Missouri from "Solid Republican" to "Lean Republican" and Arizona from "Solid Republican" to "Lean Republican."
ABC News' Noah Fitzgerel contributed to this report.
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