Q&A of the Day – How Many States Are in Play in the 2024 Presidential Election?
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Today’s Entry: Brian, if Trump is polling nine points better against Biden what would that look like if it translated in individual states? It sounds like there would be many more states in play than just the typical swing states we track if that happened.
Bottom Line: Today’s Q&A picks up on a recent observation I’ve passed along a couple of times. Specifically, that in a hypothetical head-to-head rematch between Presidents Trump and Biden, Trump is consistently polling 9-points better nationally than he was on Election Day 2020. Using the RealClear Politics average of polls Joe Biden showed a polling of advantage of 7.2% on Election Day (the actual result was that he won the national popular vote by 4.5%). As of Monday, former President Donald Trump is showing an average polling lead of 2.3%, or a turnaround of a huge 9.1% over three years ago. Of course, elections are won in individual states – not with national popular votes – however it’s safe to say that if Trump were to perform anywhere close to nine points better than he did in 2020, the outcome in many states would be different. How different?
These are all of the states which Joe Biden won by 9.1% or less:
- Georgia (0.3%)
- Arizona (0.4%)
- Wisconsin (0.8%)
- Pennsylvania (1.2%)
- Nevada (2.4%)
- Michigan (2.8%)
- Minnesota (7.1%)
- New Hampshire (7.3%)
- Maine (9.1%)
Notably, there are three additional states, that aren’t considered “battle ground” states, which would appear to come into play – Minnesota, New Hampshire and Maine. That’s in addition to what would appear to be a sizeable advantage in every preexisting battleground state. In winning the presidency in 2016, Trump became the first Republican since Ronald Reagan to win Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. You’ll frequently hear questions come up during presidential election cycles about whether a candidate can “expand the map”, beyond traditional tossup states. Trump certainly did that in 2016 and what we’re seeing is that in fact the national trends are being reflected in swing state polling as well. Not to the level of 9%, but certainly enough to flip the outcome if the trends were to hold. Here’s the current change in polling in the swing states (changes are vs. Polling on Election Day 2020):
- Pennsylvania: Trump +2.7%
- Georgia: Trump +4.5%
- Arizona: Trump +5.7%
- Wisconsin: Trump +6%
- Michigan: Trump +6.2%
- Nevada: Trump +6.4%
So, what we’ve seen translate into swing states is that Trump’s gained an average of 5.25% support over Election Day 2020. That’s potentially significant enough to win all of the states he won in 2016, plus one he didn’t, Nevada – so if the hypothetical election were held today Trump would be well positioned to expand the map beyond even what he was able to do in 2016, however, it likely wouldn’t be enough to flip Minnesota, New Hampshire and Maine. That we’re even having this conversation, however, illustrates just how much has changed in just over three years and is a further illustration as to why so many Democrats have begun to panic about the prospect of a rematch. While polling 11+ months in advance of an election doesn’t usually mean much of anything – this time could prove to be different because every voter already has clearly defined feelings about each of the candidates. That said there are no shortage of potential catalysts which loom out there. For Trump the leading potentially negative catalysts for him are related to his legal issues in the multiple criminal trials he faces entering next year. If he’s convicted and potentially sentenced to serve jail time – would that impact anyone’s vote? For Biden the leading potential negative catalysts include the risk of the economy entering a recession, further deterioration in his health, and greater geopolitical instability around the world which risks formally dragging the country into war. And then there’s the other potential wild card, or wild cards as the case happens to be – third party candidates.
Early on the conventional wisdom, and the earliest polling, suggested third party candidates – led by RFK Jr. - would hurt Trump the most. However recent and continued polling has showed that it’s President Biden who appears to have the most to lose with additional third-party candidates joining the race...at least with RFK Jr., Cornel West and Jill Stein factored in. Trump’s national polling lead averages 2-points over Biden head-to-head but 6-points nationally with the third-party candidates included. Should that trend hold – it may just have the potential to pull Minnesota, New Hampshire and Maine into the mix after all.
Of course, much can and will change between now and next year and there’s the not-so-minor detail that both Biden and Trump emerge as their party’s candidates in the end. But as of today, there’s the potential for nine states to be in play, up from five in 2016 and six in 2020. And in all instances the trend on a potentially expanding map favor Trump.