So now that Trump is the presumptive Republican Party nominee, and we’ve known for months, or even years, that Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic Party nominee, I’d like to take this opportunity to breakdown the upcoming General election and more importantly, the Electoral College breakdown.

Let’s begin with the simple, it takes 270 Electoral Votes to win the Presidency out of 543.  I will say up front, I am basing this off of what the Electoral votes were from the 2012 election, and I am unsure if any of the states have added and/or had the number of Electoral votes dropped.

There are a number of states, going back to the 1988 election that have either always gone blue (D) or red (R). 1980 and 1984 were landslides for Reagan, so not really worth analyzing.   Let’s assume at this point that those same states go the same way, but I will address potential changes later. The all blue states are: HI, MA, MN, NY, OR, RI, WA, WI and DC.  Those states total 90 votes.  There are another 9 states that have gone blue every election except for 1988 when George H.W. Bush won off of the coattails of Ronald Reagan.  Those states are: CA, CT, DE, IL, ME, MD, NJ, PA and VT.  Lets assume again that these states again go blue.  That’s another 136 votes, bringing the total to 226.  One other state, Iowa has gone blue every time except 2004.  Iowa brings 6 votes, which brings us to 233.

On the other side, 13 states have always gone red. They are: AL, AK,ID, KS, MS, NE, ND, OK, SC, SD, TX, UT and WY.  So again, let’s assume they stay the course and stay red.  These states add up to 105 votes.  There are another 5 states that have gone red except for one year, and the years vary.  AZ, GA, IN, MT and NC which total another 56.  This brings the total to 161.

So let’s catch up.  19 states go blue for 233, and 18 go red for 161.  This leaves us with 14 states to look at which account for  149 electoral votes.

2 states, NH and NM have gone blue 5 of the 7 times, lets add them to the blue side bringing the total to 241.  6 other states have gone red 5 of the 7 times, and all of them except for VA went for Clinton in 1992 and 1996. They all are in close geographical proximity to Arkansas, Bill Clinton’s home state.  They are AR, KY, LA, MO and TN.  Again, let’s assume they go red and add another 56 for the red side, bringing the total to 217.

So here we sit, 241 for blue and 217 for red.

Based on that, it’s over and the Democrats win pretty easily as they only need 29 more votes.  If Florida(29) goes blue, it’s over.  We don’t even need to add up the other “swing” states of CO,  MI, NV, OH and WV.  Those 5 states add up to 54 electoral votes, which at this point are meaningless, but I’ll get back to them later.  The reason I have listed these states as swing states is because they have gone either way at least 3 or 4 times the last 7 election cycles, but WV has gone red the last 4 times.  Of those, both NV and OH have gone the way of the eventual winner, and this is why they label these as key states, but then again, they only add up to a total of 24 electoral votes.  So how important are they really?

Let’s look at some key blue states that I feel are key for Trump to win in order to get his seat in the Oval Office.  I think it comes down to 4 states,  NY, NJ, OH and PA.  I’ll break each one down here:

Scenario A:

New York (29 Electoral Votes):  With this being the “home state” of each candidate, this will be a highly contested state.  Hillary Clinton did receive about 1.1 million votes in the primary as opposed to 524,000 for Donald Trump, so just about double the number of votes.  About 1.8 million democratic votes were cast and about 868,000 republican votes were cast.  That’s a big number for Trump to overcome right?  Not exactly.  New York ran a closed primary, which means you had to be a registered democrat of republican to be able to vote in primary.  There was also a date in which you had to change your designation beforehand in order to get a ballot for the other side.  Around election time, there were several stories out about, including Trump’s own family who didn’t get registered in time.  This designation won’t be applied to the general election.  Depending on which stat you go by, there are approximately 13 million people of voting in New York State.   So that’s about 10.1 million voters who did not vote in the primary.  That’s a lot of voters who could change things dramatically.

Prediction: Trump Wins.  29 votes from blue to red.  Blue now at: 212  Red now at 246.

New Jersey (14): Donald Trump has done a lot, and spent a lot of money in New Jersey, primarily Atlantic City, but that might not be enough for him.  If Chris Christie is his choice for VP, I feel that will tip the scale (no pun intended) over to Trump.

Prediction: Trump Wins.  Blue drops to 198.  Red goes up to 260.

Pennsylvania(20):  Going back, Pennsylvania has only gone red 1 time, and that was for George H.W. Bush.  In the primaries, Clinton received 918,000 votes compared to 892,000 for Trump.  Very close.  Mr. Trump needs to focus on jobs in this state for him to win as the border issue doesn’t seem to have as much of an impact here.

If all three above scenario’s play out, the win here secures the White House for Donald Trump as he jumps to 280.

Scenario B:

Trump still wins NY, but Christie is not the VP choice and he loses NJ which puts Trump at 246 still and needing another 24 electoral votes to win.  This still puts him 4 shy if he manages to win PA.

A win in either Ohio (18), NV (6),  or even WV (5) puts him over the top to victory.  Recall that WV has gone red 4 straight elections, so it’s not a hard assumption that that could happen.

Scenario C:

Trump wins NY, but loses NJ and PA leaving him still at 246 and needing 24 more votes.

At this point he will need OH (18) to move him to 264, 6 shy.  Let’s assume again he wins WV and moves up to 269, leaving him 1 vote shy.  He would have to bring home NV (6), CO (9) to bring it home.

Scenario D:

Trump loses NY, NJ and PA.  I haven’t even mentioned Florida (29) yet.  So we can insert FL in place of all above scenario’s for his path to victory.

Scenario E:

Trump wins Florida and NY.  Win.  Easiest path to Victory.

So basically for Donald Trump to win, NY and Florida are going to be his biggest keys.  NY is his home, and FL is his second home.

Prediction:  Trump wins in NY, NJ, PA, FL, NV, OH and WV which gives him 338 Electoral Votes, easily beating, and ending the career of  Hillary Clinton. 

I didn’t even mention Colorado (9) and Michigan (16) which again are swing states that could go Trump’s way, but I just feel the states I mentioned are more likely to go his way.