After A Whirlwind Election Night, Joe Biden Is On A Clear Path To 270 Electoral Votes

Last updated on July 18th, 2023 at 12:19 pm

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*-After a whirlwind night of early election results that gave many Democrats a terrifying case of 2016 deja vu, former Vice President Joe Biden now appears to be on a clear path to 270 electoral votes as ballots from key midwestern states continue to be tabulated.

In Wisconsin, Biden now leads Trump by more than 20,000 votes, with very few if any sources of vote left for Donald Trump to make up the ground.

As Wisconsin Democratic Party chair Ben Wikler said, “There’s no realistic path for Trump to pull ahead.”

Folks: Joe Biden just won Wisconsin,” Wikler said on Wednesday morning.

In Michigan, Trump’s lead has essentially evaporated as more votes from Democratic parts of the state come in. While the race in Michigan is now basically tied, the remaining ballots left to be counted will be “pretty blue,” Nate Silver noted.

In Pennsylvania, there is a ton of vote – 1.4 million absentee ballots – left to be counted. Those votes are likely to break heavily for Biden.

As The New York Times reported on Wednesday morning, “Joe Biden has won absentee ballots counted in Pennsylvania by an overwhelming margin so far, according to data from the Secretary of State early Wednesday. If he carried the remaining absentee ballots by a similar margin, he would win the state.”

Combined with a blue Arizona and a Biden pickup in Nebraska’s 2nd congressional district, the Democratic nominee would have more than enough electoral votes to become the next president if those three midwestern states fall into Biden’s column.

This is before we factor in blue-leaning but too-close-to-call Nevada and Georgia, which could still end up flipping for Biden. At this hour, North Carolina is still up for grabs, too.

Cook Political Report’s Dave Wasserman summed it up on Wednesday morning:

An electoral rollercoaster that ended where Joe Biden always knew it would

Since day one, Joe Biden understood that his clearest path to defeating Donald Trump ran through Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.

Many TV and Twitter pundits complained that Biden wasn’t spending the final days of his campaign looking for a landslide victory in southern states. The Biden campaign stuck to its guns, though, and planted itself in the midwest.

Now, after a whirlwind night of election returns, those states are on the verge of making Joe Biden the next president of the United States.

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Sean Colarossi

Sean Colarossi currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was an organizing fellow for both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns. He also worked with Planned Parenthood as an Affordable Care Act Outreach Organizer in 2014, helping northeast Ohio residents obtain health insurance coverage.