To the surprise of many observers, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s surge in key battleground states is holding. The most recent polls in RealClearPolitics averages have him leading in three states that President Barack Obama won in 2012: Ohio, Florida and Iowa.
Suppose for a moment that Trump’s numbers hold. Even if Trump were to take these three states, and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton retained the rest of Obama’s map, Clinton would win the election with 279 electoral votes to Trump’s 259.
Trump could win outright if, additionally, he flipped Pennsylvania or Virginia; or, if he flipped the traditionally blue rust belt states of Wisconsin and Michigan. While there are signs of tightening in Pennsylvania, each of these scenarios is less than probable, as Trump continues to trail by at least three points in these states. What seems relatively more likely, according to the latest polling, is that Trump could flip Nevada and New Hampshire, collectively worth 10 electoral college votes. While flipping Nevada is more probable than flipping New Hampshire – FiveThirtyEight holds the former to be a coin flip but the latter to be about a 37 percent chance – this scenario is more than merely conceivable. Failing this, Trump has roughly the same chance of acquiring 10 more electoral votes by flipping both Maine’s 2nd Congressional District and Colorado.
In either scenario, Clinton and Trump would tie 269-269.
What would happen in an Electoral College tie? Under Article II, Section 1, and current federal law, electors cast their votes in December before being submitted to be counted by the newly elected Congress which, by the 20th Amendment, will convene Jan. 3, 2017. In the event of a tie, the newly elected House would immediately convene to choose the president. The most generous forecasts of congressional elections have Democrats netting 10 to 15 seats – well shy of the 30 they would need to take control of the chamber. But party control of the chamber is not sufficient. The party needs to control the majority of the state delegations since it is one state, one vote when the House elects the president.