Article: Dole battling Clinton's grip on electoral votes Key GOP states of Florida, Texas pose challenge for Republican candidate; The '96 race A look at how the Electoral College battle is shaping up, four months before the election. It takes 270 electoral votes to win: Likely Democratic (247 votes): California, Washington, Oregon, Arkansas, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Maryland, Missouri, Illinois, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, Massachusetts, Delaware, Rhode Island, Connecticut, West Virginia, Hawaii, District of Columbia. Leaning Democratic (71 votes): Michigan, Ohio, New Jersey, Maine, New Mexico, Colorado. Likely Republican (100 votes): Kansas, Idaho, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Nebraska, Indiana, Alabama, Alaska, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Utah, North Dakota, South Dakota. Leaning Republican (43 votes): Texas, Arizona, Wyoming. Tossup (77 votes): Louisiana, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire. States were categorized based on most recent polling data, interviews with Democratic and Republican strategists and, in cases where recent polling data were not available, on historic trends. A potential Reform Party candidacy is not taken into account because the party has not decided on a candidate.; The '92 race Bill Clinton won 32 states and 370 of 538 electoral votes to win the presidency in 1992. A look at the Clinton-Bush electoral breakdown: Clinton (370 votes): Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, District of Columbia, West Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Montana, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, California, Oregon, Washington, Hawaii. Bush (168 votes): Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Indiana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Arizona, Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, Alaska. Ross Perot was on the ballot in all 50 states as an independent candidate but did not win any states and therefore did not receive any electoral votes.

Four months before the Nov. 5 election, Bob Dole shows signs of bringing home Republican voters to his fold, yet he faces an uphill challenge to break President Clinton's grip on the Electoral College.

The president's strength is anchored in electoral giants California and New York, which together carry nearly one-third of the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House. Elsewhere, Clinton leads comfortably throughout most of the Northeast, mid-Atlantic and industrial Midwest.

Indeed, if the election were held today, most analysts think Clinton would get well in excess of 300 electoral votes, perhaps close to 400, of the 538 divided among states based on their congressional ...

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