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Cook Keeps PA as Toss Up In Latest Presidential Ratings

While some states shift in the Democrats favor for the presidential election, the latest ratings update from the Cook Political Report shows that Pennsylvania remains a Toss Up for the presidential election. 

In an article published on June 19, Amy Walter keeps Pennsylvania as one of the five states in the Toss Up column for the showdown between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden. 

Other states included in this category include Florida, which has 29 Electoral votes, North Carolina’s 15 Electoral votes, Arizona’s 11 Electoral votes, Wisconsin’s 10 Electoral votes, and Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District’s 1 Electoral vote. 

Pennsylvania, which has the second highest number of Electoral votes in the Toss Up category, has remained in this column since their debut 2020 Election College Ratings were released in January 2019. 

The three states to change their rating in the most recent update is Michigan, which moved from Toss Up to Lean Democrat, while Iowa and Ohio moved from Likely Republican to Lean Republican. 

Walter notes that the Biden campaign included Pennsylvania is one of six states in it’s “first big ad buy of the general election,” and that this rankings are “coming at a time when Trump is in a trough” in recent polling, although Pennsylvania’s rating remains unchanged. 

Neither party has the 270 electoral votes needed to capture the White House, but Biden holds a lead in the Electoral College math

Democrats have 248 electoral votes in the Solid, Likely and Lean categories, meaning Biden would need just 26% of the electoral votes in the Toss Up column to secure a victory. Republicans currently have 204 electoral votes in the Solid, Likely, and Lean category, meaning Trump would need to capture over 75% of the electoral votes in the Toss Up column in addition to the others in the GOP category to earn a second term. 

On Election Day 2016, Pennsylvania was listed as Leans Democrat for the presidential race between Sec. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. 

These election analysts also have Pennsylvania as one of seven states with multiple House races currently listed as toss-ups. In their latest House ratings released on June 16, Reps. Matt Cartwright (D-Lackawanna) and Scott Perry (R-York) are both in races listed as toss-ups.

5 Responses

  1. Trump winning was a fluke, he got a bunch of late breaks and still barely won.

    Nobody is going to be deciding late on Trump. 200,000 Americans will be dead by the time the election rolls around. The stock market is good but the economy is bad and many people lost money this year. People are tired of his divisiveness.

    Trump is toast. And the corrupt GOP politicians who hitched their wagon to him are also toast. It will be interesting to see how they distance themselves from him in the next few months.

  2. Cook and Inside Elections are great newsletters on politics and very well researched but they are professional “hedge your bets” type publications. What Cook is not seeing is that 2020 is very different than 2016 in that Trump is really being criticized by the media whereas in 2016 he got pass after pass while Hillary was being raked over the coals. Let’s face it, media did not like Hillary. Period. She was bright. Knew government. And whatever we have going on now with the virus would be far less dramatic under Hillary’s regime. Bottom line: Don’t write off Biden’s connection to Pa and Scranton and the affection Pa has for Biden. There are going to be members of the next Congress that will be elected because of this Biden Scranton ties.

    1. Well said! What Cook doesn’t take into effect aside from Biden’s connections are the “warm up” elections that trounced Republicans, especially in southeastern PA. If you think turnout was higher than normal in 2018 and 2019, wait until the fall!

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