The best way to understand how difficult Donald Trump will be to win a second term is through an election map. A candidate needs to win at least 270 electoral votes to become the 46th president of the United States.
According to CNN's latest "Road to 270" map, Donald Trump could now have 163 electoral votes in Republican states or in states that favor him. That means he must find 107 more electoral votes to win a second term.
The next clear place for Donald Trump to campaign in the remaining precious days is the states that CNN rates as battleground states - where no candidate has a clear advantage.
There are five such states: Iowa, Ohio, North Carolina, Georgia and Florida. There is also a parliamentary region - Maine - which CNN sees as a competition between the two parties.
Except for the states of Nebraska and Maine, any candidate who wins a majority in one state or Washington DC will win all electoral votes. In Nebraska and Maine, electoral voters are selected based on the percentage of votes their candidates receive.
Those five states and Maine have a combined 85 electoral votes. For example, Mr. Donald Trump will win all of these states, he will have 248 electoral votes - still 22 votes short of what he needs to win a second term.
Not to mention, it is not easy for Donald Trump to win all of the above battleground states. Donald Trump's largest average lead is 0.6% in Ohio, 4% in Florida and Georgia and 1.4% in Iowa - according to Real Clear Politics' poll data.
In addition, there could be a scenario where Mr. Trump loses in all 5 states, or wins 3-2, or even 4-1.
But again, Assuming Trump wins all five states and Maine, where can you find the other 22 electoral votes?
Few reasons for optimism
Winning any of the traditional three states of the Democratic Party - Wisconsin (10 electoral votes), Michigan (6) and Pennsylvania 20. - is extremely difficult. In addition, polls in all three states show little reason to be optimistic for Donald Trump.
Polls published by The Washington Post, ABC News and Real Clear Politics on October 28 showed that Joe Biden is 17 points ahead of Donald Trump in Wisconsin and 7 points ahead of him in Michigan and 3.8 points ahead of him in Pennsylvania.
( Obviously, if Mr. Trump wins any of these two states, he will have enough electoral votes to win).
If Trump cannot win any of those three states, where can he get 22 electoral votes? This is very difficult.
Arizona has long been a Republican- favorite state, but polls show Trump is having a hard time there. And even with 11 electoral votes in Arizona, he has only solved half of his problem. Minnesota was where Trump narrowly lost to in 2016, and the voting in Minnesota for Trump was even worse in Arizona.
In addition to those two states, there are nine electoral votes in Colorado - an increasingly Democratic-oriented state - and six in Nevada that are also increasingly pro-Democratic, or four in New Hampshire, where Hillary Trump won 0.3% in 2016 against Donald Trump. But even if Trump wins all three of those states, he will still have a total of 19 electoral votes, which means he will still be short of three.
However, what election maps and Maths show is just a prediction, and things could reverse the current trend lines so that Donald Trump can reach 270 electoral votes or higher. And it is certain that whoever is elected can only wait and see.
