DOMENICO MONTANARO: Hey, everyone, I'm Domenico
Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent.
ASMA KHALID: And I'm Asma Khalid, a political
correspondent covering the presidential election.
MONTANARO: And we're going to talk a little bit about
the battleground map and how it's changed in the last
month or so. A lot of things moving toward Joe Biden,
the Democrat, in his direction. And a couple of big changes
from our last map that we want to unveil. First: Colorado, 
we're moving from "Lean Democrat" to "Likely Democrat."
Pennsylvania, a big state that President Trump won last
time, moving from "Toss-up" to "Lean Democrat."
Nevada, also a state that Hillary Clinton won but was
very close, moving from "Toss-up" also to "Lean Democrat."
Georgia, we're moving from "Lean Republican" to
"Toss-up" now because of where a lot of the numbers
and the organization have been. And the big one: We're
moving Florida from "Toss-up" to "Lean Democrat."
That was a tough one. We've got Asma Khalid with us,
who has been in Florida actually reporting from a key
county. Asma, what are you finding?
KHALID: Well, I'm in Duval County. Home to Jacksonville,
and as many folks probably remember, it was supposed
to be hosting the RNC. And it is a traditionally Republican
county. It has not gone for a presidential candidate, a
Democratic presidential candidate, since 1976 with
Jimmy Carter. But why I came here is that it has been
trending bluer. In 2018, this county actually did go for the
Democrat at the gubernatorial level. And really,
you know, folks describe it as a purplish county. But both
Republicans and Democrats do have a hunch that
Duval County could potentially go for Democrats.
But look, you know, symbolically, it would be a big change.
This county hasn't gone for a Democrat in decades.
MONTANARO: Yeah. And I mean, look, it's part of a
bigger suburban trend across the country where we've
seen this movement since President Trump, frankly,
took office, where President Trump won the suburbs
 in 2016 very narrowly. But polling has shown him down
by historic margins in the suburbs to Joe Biden.
KHALID: Part of it is also, though, that in the suburban
communities I visited — you know, in Wisconsin and
Michigan and then even here in Jacksonville, which folks
kind of joke of as being this overgrown, one large
suburban community — there is a sense that the way
the president has handled the racial protests in this
country since the killing of George Floyd, it's leaving
a lot of displeasure. You know, I would say amongst
white college educated voters, African-American voters,
all kinds of voters. And part of that speaks to the growing
diversity of of the suburbs, right? These are not sort of
segregated pockets that maybe they were decades ago,
despite the rhetoric we've been hearing from President
Trump. And Republicans will say, look, you know, it's not
politically correct to always say you're supporting
President Trump in certain circles. And so there is a belief
that there are "secret Trump voters," and
that maybe the polls are kind of underestimating the
support that there is for the president in this country.
So I'm curious, you know, regardless of whether or not
maybe that is accurate, do you see a path when we look
at the map for President Trump?
MONTANARO: Absolutely, and that includes holding on
to a lot of what he had last time. And there's a couple of
caveats here. First of all, about a place like Florida where,
you know, Florida's been one of the closest states in
every presidential election in quite some time. And,
you know, it's a state that went against the tide in 2018
of a Democratic wave where it elected a Republican
governor, a Republican senator. And that's not something
to, you know, sort of dismiss out of hand. Also, you know,
when we look at the polling, Joe Biden has stayed around
49 percent, 50 percent, which is great for him, but a lot
of his lead that's expanded nationally has been because
of a drop for President Trump with his voters, with
independents, for example. The Trump campaign, the
Biden campaign even, feels like Trump could make up a
lot of that ground. Because at the end of the day, some
of those folks will say that they are voting for Trump
even if they won't tell pollsters right now that they're
voting that way because they don't like how he's handled
some of this stuff. Of course, we're not going to know
until Election Day, but I do think that...
KHALID:  Or election week.
MONTANARO: Right. I mean, but look, Democrats are
certainly more fired up, I think, this time as far as being
unified single mindedly against President Trump and
not underestimating whether the fact that he could
win reelection. Well, that's it for us. For more, log on to
NPRPolitics.org to see our full battleground map, and
download the NPR Politics podcast.
