“She is sitting at 269 electoral votes guaranteed right now,” said David Plouffe, the architect of Barack Obama’s two victories and an outside adviser to Clinton’s campaign, including the battleground state of Pennsylvania in his count. “I would argue she is sitting at 347 but for argument’s sake we can suspend reality for a moment.”
“The Clinton campaign is smart to have such a wide playing field,” he said. “It increases your margin of error, forces Trump to play defense in the Georgia, Utah, and Arizona — and preserves the chance for an Electoral College landslide.”
Clinton allies see an East Coast path, for instance, which would guarantee 317 electoral votes by picking up New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina and Florida; a wholly separate Latino strategy that would put her at 295 electoral votes just with victories in Florida, Nevada, Colorado and New Mexico; and a path through the Rust Belt that would focus on Pennsylvania, Ohio, Iowa and put her at 293 electoral votes without North Carolina, Georgia, Florida or Nevada.
So far, the campaign has not privileged any one option over another. The only downside to the strategy is spreading the campaign too thin and running out of money — but Clinton’s August fundraising haul was a massive $143 million, by far her best month to date. And Priorities USA, the super PAC backing her campaign, is on track to raise more than double what it brought in for President Obama last cycle.
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