Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump will hold a rally in Atkinson, New Hampshire this morning.
Trump will speak from the Atkinson Country Club beginning at 12:00 p.m. Eastern Time. The rally can be viewed live in the embedded YouTube player via Right Side Broadcasting.
New Hampshire is a state that has become critical in Donald Trump’s pathway to 270 Electoral Votes. If Trump wins all of the traditionally-red states plus Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, Iowa, Arizona and Nevada, he would wind up with 265 electoral votes, and Hillary Clinton would be elected president. From there, Trump needs just a bit more to push him over the edge, and if he wins New Hampshire, plus Maine’s second congressional district, this would put him at exactly 270, and he would win the election. Another option, albeit one that is rather unlikely, is for Trump to win Pennsylvania, which is why he is headed there for a rally on Friday night.
The state of New Hampshire for a several weeks has been considered a lock for Hillary Clinton, but Trump is now beginning to rebound in the polls there. At the moment, he is ahead of Clinton by two points in Real Clear Politics’ polling average. The idea of New Hampshire going for Trump is becoming more and more likely, although most election forecasts are still predicting a Clinton win. FiveThirtyEight, which uses a more conservative model than some other forecasters, predicts Clinton has a 63.9 percent chance of winning New Hampshire.
New Hampshire is only worth four Electoral College votes, and so it matters much more to Trump than it does to Clinton. The Democratic nominee has many pathways to victory, tons of which don’t involve New Hampshire. But Trump only has a few pathways, and so if he manages to win New Hampshire but he loses just one other battleground state he needs, it’s all over, and Hillary Clinton becomes the next president.
Following Trump’s rally in Atkinson, he will head to Ohio for a rally in Wilmington, and then to Pennsylvania for a rally in Hershey.