Donald Trump's narrow path to victory

Residents of the genteel, leafy lakeside suburb of Cleveland, Ohio, where the insurance attorney lives with his wife, were so incensed by the couple’s support for Donald Trump that they tried to have him sacked from his law firm.

Its residents support Joe Biden 10-to-one over Trump if front-yard signs are any gauge.

John Farnan says he has put up the Trump signs on his lawn in a predominantly Democrat suburb of Cleveland “just to let other people know that they’re not alone”.

But Farnan says the experience has only made him more determined to fight for Trump.

Many of his neighbours love Trump as well, he says, but they’re too scared to put up signs for fear of precisely that kind of career-threatening backlash.

“It’s an orchestrated campaign by the left of this country to bully people into silence,” Farnan says.

“And that’s one of the reasons I put up my signs; just to let other people know that they’re not alone.”.

The attitude towards Trump among the 35 to 43 per cent of his supporters who are glommed on has only hardened through the past four years. Jacob Greber.

With polls showing Biden consistently ahead nationally, and in several key battleground states, Trump will need to win most if not all these contests.

Places of great affluence abound outside Detroit, or in university towns like Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Madison, Wisconsin.

It's a reminder that if there is a dividing line through this country as it approaches election day in just over two weeks, you won’t find it along the Mason-Dixon line that delineated the north and south before the Civil War 155 years ago.

It’s at that point that you know you’ve just crossed the line into Trump country.

Polls show the President is in serious trouble, particularly after two dramatic weeks in which Trump mishandled his first debate against Biden and then got the coronavirus.

The attitude towards Trump among the 35 to 43 per cent of his supporters who are glommed on has only hardened through the past four years of turmoil and controversy: the Russia probe, trade wars, attacks on allies, Supreme Court nomination battles, fights against the “deep state”, the Ukraine scandal and impeachment, his taxes, and the tweets, the never-ending tweets.

Trump won here against Hillary Clinton four years ago by just 0.72 per cent, or 44,292 votes, the narrowest margin in Pennsylvania for a presidential election in 176 years.

The state’s largely white, non-college educated rural and industrial areas support Trump, whereas Biden is relying on the suburbs, women and college-educated voters to bring it home for him.

Four years ago, Trump devotee Leslie Rossi, 49, became a local celebrity in her community of Latrobe, outside Pittsburgh, after painting a farmhouse with the Stars and Stripes and handing out MAGA T-shirts and how-to-vote information.

In 2016, people didn’t like Hillary and they didn’t necessarily like Trump, she tells me as we sit on the porch of her “Trump House”, which has a four-meter cut-out of the President grinning at passing motorists.

“Back then, people were very undecided.” But she says they all shared similar grievances over healthcare, the need to work two jobs, or accessing veterans' services.

Four years later, she says, "There's no convincing?

So why support Biden.

If they come out on masse for Biden, Trump will struggle to close the gap with enough voters from mostly white rural areas.

Large parts of Michigan are a far cry from what many people might associate with the state. Getty.

The scene is a reminder that large parts of Michigan are a far cry from what many people might associate with the state, particularly post-industrial Detroit or the dystopian image of nearby Flint, made famous by documentary maker Michael Moore’s relentlessly dark portrayal of America.

Conceding Trump is ahead on raw grassroots enthusiasm, Timmer says he’s detecting a more “solid and stable” base of support for Biden in Michigan, where the President won four years ago by less than 0.25 per cent.

Michigan’s traditional Republican hubs like Battle Creek, Grand Rapids and Kent County haven’t voted Democrat for decades, he says.

“I think when the story of this campaign is written, it’ll be about how quickly areas like Texas, North Carolina and Arizona are shifting away from Republicans," says Timmer.

Following up an email this week about whether he's still confident of a Biden victory, Timmer says the turnout will be even higher than he thought a month earlier, which he believes is bad news for Trump.

Dan Gillis, 69, who has lived his whole life in south-east Michigan, just outside Detroit, is both a businessman – he ran an electrical and construction company – and a union member; in his case, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.

“It’s amazing that there are a lot of working-class people voting for Trump,” he says.

In 2016, Trump pledged to “bring back American jobs”, particularly to Michigan where the main lifeblood is the car-making industry.

By February this year, that number had grown by just 6600, or about 1 per cent, to 623,700.

By contrast, during the final four years of Obama’s term in office, the number rose by almost 15 per cent, or 78,600 jobs.

“A lot of people want to go back to normalcy,” he says.

“Where the people who run the government act like the politicians we’re used to.

Jim Regan has just finished feeding his dairy herd with forklifts of hay when I introduce myself?

“He’s got things so screwed up,” Regan says of Trump.

Regan says he’d still support Biden if he decided to join the US to the Trans-Pacific Partnership and doesn’t fear talk of improving access to healthcare

Regan says he’d never heard anything like it in his life

No,” says Farnan, the Cleveland attorney