The big picture right now

Where do things stand, big-picture wise?

Trump’s having a good night.But results in the key battleground state are still out. Pointing to bright points for Trump, we look to Florida, where he is beating previous performances by Republican candidates in many rural counties and in the Tampa and St Petersburg area, which is a lot of people. We look to Virginia, where the race has yet to be called for Clinton, despite strong returns for her in the populous northern counties. And we look to question marks in the upper Midwest, in Wisconsin and Michigan, states that have not gone for a Republican in a presidential election in the last six elections, but where a lot of support for Trump among white, blue-collar voters could tilt the dynamics of the races this year.

Clinton has bright points to point to as well, including that strong performance in Virginia’s northern counties, the fact that portions of Florida yet to count are thought to prefer her strongly, and her solid early voting results in Nevada and elsewhere. She has strong precedent to rely on for possible victory in those aforementioned upper Midwestern states, which help make up her so-called “blue firewall” of states – none of which she has yet lost.

It’s still either candidate’s race. And we’re coming up on a new wave of poll closings in states including Nevada, which has a habit of announcing results quickly, and Utah, where the presence of third-party candidate Evan McMullin, and perceived soft support for Trump could be important to the ultimate result.

We have a ways to go.