Q&A of the Day – Census Impact on the 2024 Presidential Election
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Today’s Entry: @brianmuddradio W/the election almost here and reports of a “margin of error” pres. race. How important do the Census changes appear to be vs. 2020?
Bottom Line: It’s a good question that’s worth revisiting as Election Season, with the first 2024 presidential election vote-by-mail ballots being sent out this week. A lot of attention was paid to the 2020 Census changes three and a half years ago when they were announced, however this is the first presidential election that will be conducted with them in place. As the Census showed...there are now over 330 million people and where we’re located continues to shift from the northeast and midwest to the southeast and west. The traditional red state, Texas, was the biggest gainer adding two Electoral College votes. In Florida, the second biggest red state, we added one. Here are all the changes. Here’s a breakdown of the Electoral College changes...
So, what then about the Electoral College. How is that likely to change? These are the states set to gain in the Electoral College based upon Census changes:
- Texas (red): 2 votes
- Colorado (blue): 1 vote
- Florida (red): 1 vote
- Montana (red): 1 vote
- North Carolina (swing): 1 vote
- Oregon (blue): 1 vote
And the losers...
- California (blue): 1 vote
- Illinois (blue): 1 vote
- Michigan (swing): 1 vote
- New York (blue): 1 vote
- Ohio (red): 1 vote
- Pennsylvania (swing): 1 vote
- West Virginia (red): 1 vote
Net-net what would the difference in the Electoral College have been in the 2020 election cycle? Donald Trump would have fared better by three Electoral College votes, or the equivalent of a small state. The last election that was so close that it could have swung based on as few as 3-Electoral College votes was George W. Bush’s win over Al Gore in 2000. This is to say that the odds of the election swinging based on Census changes is unlikely. Even if there’s a super close election that might come down to one swing state, it is still likely to result in a margin that’s bigger than three. However, if it were to be the difference maker this is likely how it would happen.
If Trump were to carry all of the states he won four years ago, which appears to be increasingly likely as Trump’s consistently running 5%-6% ahead of where he was four years ago in the polls, there are now two additional paths based on the Census changes, where Trump would only have to win over 3-swing states. The closest of those scenarios would be this. Trump carries the states he did in 2020 and flips Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin. If that were to happen, he’d win with 272 Electoral College votes. Three years ago, that’s a path that would have resulted in a 269-269 tie with Congress deciding the next president. I’m not an odds maker to be able to apply the hard percentage change the Census has had, but for perspective the 538 model says there’s exactly a 1% chance of an Electoral College tie in this election. That obviously would have meant a Harris win four years ago – so clearly the odds of Trump winning have increased by greater than 1% due to the change. It’s not unreasonable to suggest the actual number based on scenarios would be an increase of at least 5% based on the polling that we see today.
With a closely divided House of Representatives currently, and a what may potentially be a close election at the top-of-the-ticket, the odds are probably higher than the Census changes have a greater likelihood of impacting which party controls the House in January, that the White House. But then again, we don’t know until we count votes.