Donald Trump Flips Battleground State in Election Forecast Model

Fox News has switched its election forecast for Arizona from a tossup to lean-Republican, predicting a victory for former President Donald Trump in the Grand Canyon State.

Host Bill Hemmer announced the shift on America’s Newsroom Tuesday, pointing out that a Kamala Harris victory in the Electoral College was “plausible” without the vice president winning Arizona.

The shift in the network’s state forecast “power rankings” was based on averaging the results of eight polls in the state since early September. Trump led in seven of the polls and Harris led in one.

Newsweek has contacted both campaign teams for comment via email.

While polling in 43 states suggests they will very likely back one of the two major party candidates, the remaining seven states are competitive battlegrounds, where the candidates will need to win a certain combination of votes to reach 270 Electoral College votes and win the presidency.

The seven battleground states are Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, and North Carolina.

With Fox Newspredicting that Trump will win Arizona, Harris still has a path to victory by winning the other swing states.

“You got the Blue Wall with Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, and they got that one electoral vote in Nebraska,” Hemmer said. “If she does that, as we’ve been talking now for a couple of weeks, that would be the 270 mark that she needs to reach. So that’s still a plausible map based on what we’re seeing now.”

However, in its Power Rankings, Fox News shifted the three Blue Wall states from lean-Democrat to tossup, meaning it now considers six of the seven battlegrounds to be toss-ups. Trump won all seven in 2016 and Joe Biden won all seven in 2020.

In a situation where Harris wins all Democratic-leaning states, the three Blue Wall states, and Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District (which polling suggests she will win), Harris would have 270 Electoral Votes and would win the White House.

That scenario presumes Trump would win all the Republican-leaning states, as well as Georgia, North Carolina, Nevada, Arizona, and Maine’s 2nd Congressional District (which polling suggests he will win), leaving him with 268 Electoral College votes.

Trump very likely needs at least two of the four biggest battleground states (Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Michigan) to win, but he could achieve victory with the three biggest states (by Electoral College votes)—Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia—while losing the rest to Harris.

As it stands, the election is shaping up to be one of the closest in history.