The 2020 general election could ultimately boil down to just four states, making it the narrowest electoral map for a presidential contest in recent memory, The Washington Post reports.

"Because of the partisanship of the country and the partisanship of the president, we are now looking at the smallest map in modern political history," Jim Messina, the campaign manager for former President Barack Obama's 2012 re-election campaign, said.

You can probably guess at least a few of the states — all of which President Trump snagged by a percentage point or less in the 2016 election. They are Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Many analysts reportedly consider Wisconsin, in particular, to be the single state upon which the election could turn.

The Post points out that part of the reason the terrain has narrowed so much is that Trump has done little to expand his base, while it's unclear if states like Arizona, Georgia, and North Carolina are really ready to shift from red to blue. If that's not the case, and Trump doesn't flip any blue states, the election's fate will reside in Florida and the Great Lakes Region. The Post reports that if the Democrats win Florida, the party may need only to secure one of the other three states to turn the tide. Read more at The Washington Post. Tim O'Donnell

Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred has faced quite a bit of criticism over his decision to not discipline any players over their role in what was mostly a player-orchestrated, technology-infused sign stealing scheme in 2017, the year they won the World Series. In a wide-ranging interview with ESPN's Karl Ravech about the cheating scandal published Sunday, he explained his reasoning behind that choice.

Manfred said he understands why opposing players and fans would like to see Astros other than former general manager Jeff Lunhow and former manager A.J. Hinch face consequences, but if players were suspended or disciplined in some way MLB would have had to deal with grievances from the Players' Association. Theoretically, in Manfred's view, the MLBPA would have argued Lunhow never fully articulated a 2017 MLB memo on the use of technology during games to the clubhouse.

"So we knew if we had disciplined the players in all likelihood we were going to have grievances and grievances that we were going to lose on the basis that we never properly informed them of the rules," he told Ravech.

Besides, he doesn't think it's fair to say the players were let off the hook because the scrutiny they're facing is harsh enough. "I think if you watch the players, watch their faces when they have to deal with this issue publicly, they have paid a price," he said. "To think they're skipping down the road into spring training, happy, that's just a mischaracterization of where we are." Read more at ESPN and watch Manfred's full 45-minute interview here. Tim O'Donnell

White House counselor Kellyanne Conway thinks Democrats should spend some time self-reflecting if they're really considering the possibility of backing billionaire and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg as the party's presidential nominee.

Fox News' Chris Wallace asked Conway on Sunday if it would be fair for President Trump to go after Bloomberg for sexist comments he's reportedly made in the workplace in the past. In Conway's mind that's absolutely fair game, and she's not sure why Democrats aren't already doing that themselves.

Wallace asked Conway how the Bloomberg revelations found in The Washington Post compared to Trump's infamous Access Hollywood tape. "It's far worse," Conway said. "Oh my goodness, it's far worse. And, by the way, that was fully litigated."

Bloomberg's Democratic competitor former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg also appeared on Fox News Sunday and Wallace asked him to comment on the allegations of sexism and racism being waged at Bloomberg. Buttigieg said Bloomberg will have to answer for that, and he thinks voters want a candidate without that kind of baggage, but did say there was no comparison to Trump's rhetoric. Tim O'Donnell

Sonic the Hedgehog just sped right past the bad buzz of its first trailer to an impressive box office debut.

The Paramount Pictures film based on the video game franchise grossed an estimated $57 million at the domestic box office through Sunday, and it's expected to take in $68 million during the four-day holiday weekend. The three-day haul sets a new record for the best domestic opening weekend for a movie based on a video game, beating the $54 million debut of 2019's Pokémon Detective Pikachu, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Sonic's domestic opening also came in above previous tracking that suggested it would take in between $40-45 million, Variety reports.

This was quite a comeback for a film that some thought was headed toward disaster when the first trailer dropped last year, revealing a Sonic whose design was widely panned. But in a move that's almost unheard of, the movie was delayed three months from its original November release so Sonic could be completely redesigned. That decision paid off, as when the tweaked version of the character was revealed in November, fans were largely satisfied.

Sonic the Hedgehog also ended up receiving surprisingly solid reviews from critics, as it currently holds a 63 percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, joining a rare group of video game adaptations to be fairly well received, and its A CinemaScore indicates general audiences thought even more highly of the film. Now, when it comes to a sequel, Paramount likely can't go fast enough. Brendan Morrow

Yemen's Houthi rebels said air raids conducted by the Western-backed Saudi-UAE-led military coalition killed more than 30 civilians Saturday just one day after the rebels said they shot down a Saudi jet fighter with a surface-to-air missile. The United Nations confirmed Saturday's death toll.

The Houthis said women and children were among the dead, and the coalition acknowledged the "possibility of collateral damage" during their search-and-rescue mission for the downed plane.

The conflict which began in 2015 after the Houthis, who are backed by Iran, forced out former Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, prompting Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to support loyalist forces. Since then, Lise Grande, the U.N.'s humanitarian coordinator for Yemen, said there's been little done to protect the Yemeni people.

"So many people are being killed in Yemen — it's a tragedy and it's unjustified," she said in light of the most recent attacks. "Under international humanitarian law parties which resort to force are obligated to protect civilians. Five years into this conflict and belligerents are still failing to uphold this responsibility. It's shocking." Read more at Al Jazeera and BBC. Tim O'Donnell

Former Vice President Joe Biden zeroed in this weekend on one of his top competitors, who many consider to have eclipsed him as the Democratic presidential frontrunner.

In an interview set to air on NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday, Biden waded into a controversy surrounding Sanders supporters who have been accused of threatening members of Nevada's Culinary Workers Union for not backing Sanders' Medicare-for-All proposal. Biden said Sanders is necessarily directly responsible for such behavior, but he's not sure he's done enough to put a stop to it, either.

Biden also criticized Sanders' policy proposals, arguing that while the senator has talked about Medicare-for-All for 35 years, he has nothing to show for it. Biden said people, like those in the Culinary Workers Union, have "broken their necks" to procure their current insurance, and he's not sure why Sanders wants to force them to give it up.

And on Saturday evening, the former vice president put Sanders' 2005 vote to exempt gun manufacturers from liability in shootings on blast. He didn't name Sanders outright, but he called out "some of the people running for office" who voted for the exemption. Sanders, for what it's worth, has since changed his position on the matter. Read more at The Associated Press. Tim O'Donnell

People are very upset about the NBA dunk contest.

The Miami Heat's Derrick Jones Jr. won the event Saturday during the NBA's All-Star Weekend, outlasting the Orlando Magic's Aaron Gordon, but the victory came with a lot of controversy.

After advancing to the final, Jones and Gordon each received perfect scores, and they did so again during the first dunk-off, setting up a second tie-breaker. Jones' dunk in that round garnered a score of 48 out of 50 from the judges, while Gordon's — in which he jumped over 7-foot-5 Boston Celtic center Tacko Fall — only notched a 47 even though two of the judges, hip hop artist Common and WNBA star Candace Parker, who gave Gordon a perfect 10 said the panel had previously agreed to end that round in a tie, as well.

Gordon, who felt he deserved to win, said he's done with the dunk contest after losing in the similarly controversial 2016 edition. "I feel like I should have two trophies," he said. "It's over for that."

The crowd was booing the judges all the night, and several of Gordon's NBA colleagues felt justice wasn't served.

Even Jones thought his 48 in the final was unfair, though he does believe the fact that Gordon clipped Fall's head on the way up validated his competitor's lack of a perfect score.

Anyway, check out the final two displays of athleticism below that spurred all the furor. Tim O'Donnell