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It was the site of the determinative — and controversial — recount in the 2000 presidential election. It has the most electoral votes (29) of any swing state. It could give Trump hope. It could give Clinton a lock.
Like most recent presidential elections, Florida is at the top of the list of states to watch.
Going into Tuesday, experts say it looks this way: Trump almost must have Florida. Clinton needs it but could win without.
Marist College pollster Lee Miringoff has this blunt assessment: “Trump has to carry it. If he doesn’t, then he’d have to make up the difference in states where it’s more difficult for him. He’d have to clean out the industrial Midwest. On the other side, the state for a quick Clinton knockout is Florida.”
Forecasts vary, and the candidates are running neck-and-neck in the Sunshine State — that’s why each camp has made multiple stops there in the final week of the race.
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Up to 12 “swing” states are in play as Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump steam into Election Day after one of the most long-running, unpredictable and bitter campaigns in our times.
History is in the making, one way or another. Clinton has a chance to become the first female president of the United States. Trump could become just the sixth person to win the White House without ever having won a previous elective office; Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, in 1952, was the last. Unlike the previous five, Trump was never a military general or a high-ranking federal official.
The chances for each candidate have, as expected, gone up and down since the conventions in July, with the race tightening, widening and tightening again. Here is where forecasts generally have it now: Clinton has the slight edge going into Tuesday, but Trump has a very real shot.
But the degree of confidence varies from the Princeton Election Consortium — which says Clinton has a 99 percent chance of winning — to FiveThirtyEight.com, which pegs it at 64 percent.
“It would not necessarily require a major polling error for Trump to be elected, though he would have to do so with an extremely narrow majority in the Electoral College,” Nate Silver wrote on FiveThirtyEight.com, the forecasting site.
Here are five things to watch on Tuesday:
