This also puts an inordinate amount of constraint, if Democrats want any chance of eventually gaining back the Supreme Court, on the party to win the White House in 2024. I've said this a couple of times on here, but given the ages of Justices Thomas & Alito, the doomsayers proclaiming "the Supreme Court is 100% lost for 30-40 years" are provably wrong, even without Court expansion, but they're going to need to hold the White House and/or the Senate continually until at least the early 2030's (it's morbid, but it's reality) in order for these pessimists to be wrong. President Biden winning reelection quickly becomes a pivotal piece of the Court conversation, if not the only piece of the Court conversation, given the uphill odds the Senate Democrats face.
So the question is-what are his odds next year? We are a year out, and Biden's approval ratings are poor. It's not entirely clear how poor they are, as a chunk of the softness is coming from voters who don't like Biden's age or who voted for him but are disappointed (i.e. voters who would probably vote for him with their nose held if the Republicans don't make a compelling case not to). Normally this would be a problem for a sitting president, and it's hard not to think of Biden as being vulnerable (anyone who says otherwise is lying to you). But the biggest advantage the incumbent president has, other than a rosy economy, is that his opponent feels likely to be former President Donald Trump. Trump's approval ratings are also low, and given Trump's age, pending criminal record, and the general fear of giving him a second term in office for moderates or for former Republicans who may want to go back-to-the-fold but are willing to hold their nose for Biden again...Biden remains in my mind (currently) an odds-on favorite in a rematch.
Part of that is the electoral college, which gets us to our article today. In 2020, Joe Biden won 306 electoral votes to Donald Trump's 232. Since then, the US has gone through a census, which means that the Biden states are now worth 303 votes to Trump's 235. As a reminder, the winner needs 270 electoral votes to win the White House, so the onus is on Trump to flip at least 34 electoral college votes to win the White House. That's challenging, and we're going to get into why below. Our list today is going through the states most likely to flip in a rematch between the two men, with #1 being the most likely...but it's worth noting this is a rematch, and in American politics a rematch frequently means both sides get more entrenched, not less. The problem for Trump is-even the #1 seat on this list is not an easy flip for the former president.
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| Trump with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis |
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| Biden with New Hampshire Sen. Maggie Hassan |
I kind of object on some level to New Hampshire (which Biden won) going on a list of the most competitive states, because there have really been no signs that the state will go red in 2024 (even though it's oftentimes listed as a competitive state), and you could make a serious argument that Florida will have a closer margin at the end-of-the-day than New Hampshire. The Granite State is a combination of rural white voters (more likely to be in Trump's camp) but also spillover from the Boston metropolitan area, which is much likelier to be blue. While Chris Sununu won reelection in the state in 2022 (and will probably win again in 2024 if he ran), the Democrats won both congressional races and a Senate race there last year, and Biden won the state by 7-points. This feels like the sort of state that someone like Chris Christie would be competitive in if he could get close to the Republican presidential nomination (I'll say it just once for the record-Trump is leading by a margin that would indicate he's near impossible to beat, but he's not as entrenched as Biden, and while this list assumes Trump is the nominee, someone like Christie would make this Top 10 a much different exercise). This is a close state, but it's a state that's hard to see actually flipping to Trump.
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| Trump campaigning in Nebraska |
The same can be said for Nebraska's 2nd congressional district. This is a district that also went for Biden by just under 7-points (slightly closer than New Hampshire), but it's even more exacerbated by the changing demographics of the district. While the Republicans made the district redder than it could've been (or would've been under the old lines), the district is entirely encompassing the Omaha-Council Bluffs metropolitan area, which is very blue. Jim Pillen won the district in 2022 in the open gubernatorial race, so it's still capable of electing Republicans that are running pretty conservative campaigns, but in a contest he won statewide by 23-points, he won the district by less than a tenth of a percentage. The bigger question here isn't whether or not Biden holds it (against Trump, it's near-certain), it's whether against Trump he'd be strong enough to knock out Rep. Don Bacon, who represents one of 18 districts that Republicans hold that went for Joe Biden in 2020. I kind of wonder if a Biden/Trump rematch might be too much even for the popular Bacon to hang on next year.
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| Trump with Texas Sen. Ted Cruz |
Here's the deal. Nebraska-2, Minnesota, & New Hampshire were all far bigger blowouts in 2020 than Texas, so don't give me that look. Texas is a state that Democrats have claimed "demographic destiny" will make blue for decades, and that hasn't held water. But in 2024, while Texas is still probably pink, the blue-trending nature of the suburbs, combined with a Republican ticket that is uniquely unappealing to said voters (Trump & Ted Cruz) could make the state a proper swing state for the first time in its existence if the Biden second term train seems likeliest to hit the station. I still think that 2028 is probably the year where Texas could actually turn blue, but I do think we're going to see a Democratic victory in the state that, in many ways, stands as proxy for the Republican identity. It also has to be said-there's been a lot of (correct) conversation about the electoral college having a disproportionate bias to the Republicans, but if Texas were to go blue, that goes out the window. Trump would have to win all of the next seven states to barely win the White House if Texas was blue, that's how big of a piece of the pie Texas is to Republicans' White House strategy. Throw in the Senate campaign in Texas (where a Colin Allred upset victory would go a long way in helping Democrats defy the odds next year), and there's a lot of reasons for Democrats to go here if they can afford it.
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| Biden with Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer |
Michigan is a weird state. It's in the Great Lakes region, a section of the country with a lot of white, working class voters, and it's the place that Republicans are eventually hoping to counter Texas with. But other than 2016, which Hillary Clinton barely lost (and I maintain, had she known she could lose it, she likely wouldn't have), it's not really that swingy, so much as it is close. Tight Senate races in 2018 & 2020 and a decently close presidential race in 2020 mean it has to be on this list, but Democrats' won landslides in 2022, and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer remains insanely popular here. Michigan's geography is different than Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and even Minnesota in that the blue sections of the state are scattered. It's not like Wisconsin where if Democrats don't drive bonkers numbers in Milwaukee & Madison, they've lost. Democrats have a number of medium-sized communities, frequently built around colleges, that give them an advantage. As a result, of the seven "swing" states most often characterized by the media, this is the one I think is least likely to break.
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| Biden with Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman |
Pennsylvania has also proven a challenge for Republicans since 2016, when they pulled off a first-in-decades POTUS victory over Hillary Clinton and a surprise win over Katie McGinty for the Senate. 2018, 2020, & 2022, have given Democrats impressive victories. In fact, the only really close election in that bunch was Biden/Trump in 2020, where this state served as the tipping point state in the presidential election. There's little indication since then that Trump's standing has improved-it certainly didn't in 2022, when his hand-picked candidate (Mehmet Oz) got clobbered in the Senate campaign, and Biden is already starting in a better position in 2024 with a popular governor (Josh Shapiro) and a better Senate running-mate than Clinton got in 2016 in Sen. Bob Casey, easily the most consistent swing state politician of this century. This will be close, but again, if the election were held today between Trump & Biden, it's tough to make the case for Trump.
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| Trump with North Carolina Sen. Ted Budd |
The one Trump state that pretty much every pundit agrees is competitive and a potential pickup for Biden is North Carolina. North Carolina has kind of been the opposite of Nevada for a number of years now-occasionally it will go to the other side (Joe Lombardo & Roy Cooper repping both states outliers), but on a federal level it's largely just flirting with being a swing state rather than actually committing. It's been telegraphed by the Biden camp that they want to go all-in on North Carolina, a state that is difficult for Democrats to overcome (it has a large rural population that is very red, and they've not totally capitalized on the major metropolitan areas yet), but has potential given the Charlotte, Raleigh, & Greensboro metro areas continue to grow. It's worth noting how much Trump needs to hang on here. Trump likely has to flip four states to win the White House in 2024-losing North Carolina would mean he'd need to go into Michigan or Pennsylvania to get a fifth, which would be a tough sell given Biden's inherent advantages there.
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| Biden with Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema |
For those keeping count, Arizona would be the tipping point state for Democrats in my rankings. Technically, Trump could win the White House with just 1, 2, & 4 on this list, but that's not really how these things work, and I think Arizona is going to be where Republicans are going to run into one of their biggest challenges. This state should be competitive. Biden barely won it in 2020 (becoming the first Democrat to win the state since Bill Clinton in 1996), taking it by under 11k votes, an extremely marginal race. But Republicans have badly misjudged the nature of the state, treating it like a Republican stronghold still, which came back to bite them in the ass in 2022, when not only did Sen. Mark Kelly win a full-term in the US Senate, but the presumed frontrunner in the governor's race (Kari Lake) lost to Democrat Katie Hobbs. The Republicans, therefore, have no institutional advantages here (Democrats hold the Gov/SoS/AG offices and both Senate seats), and have proven that the state doesn't want to vote for a Trump-like candidate anymore (they want a Republican, but a moderate one, and they'll take a Democrat over a MAGA devotee). Lake also has done a fine job of bankrupting the state party's finances, and turned off a lot of moderates in the GOP (it's probable that by 2024, Independents will outnumber Republicans for registration numbers, something Trump didn't have to deal with in 2020). This is a competitive state, no doubt, but Republicans are not doing what they need to do to win here.
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| Biden with Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto |
No swing state gave Republicans unequivocal good news in 2022-they all were either a mixed bag or a total victory for the left. But Nevada arguably gave them the best reason to be intrigued, knocking out an incumbent governor (Steve Sisolak), the only incumbent governor to lose a general election in 2022. Nevada is the only state in my Top 4 to have been won by Biden by more than a point in 2020 (it was the sixth closest state, with PA & NC both being closer), but it is trending Republican slowly, particularly given college education levels in the state. Trending doesn't mean destiny (just ask the Texas Democratic Party) and turnout will be much higher in 2024 than it was in 2022, and abortion still becomes an issue here (it's almost certainly the prime reason that Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto still has a job and Steve Sisolak doesn't is because of her focus on getting abortion legalized on a federal level whereas the blue state legislative majorities meant that wasn't an issue on a state-level), but Biden will need to find a way to stop the Republican friendliness in Clark County, and do a better job with Latino voter outreach in the state to ensure this stays in his column. Let's not forget, while this is only six electoral votes, Nevada has a Senate race in 2024 that the left will need to hold to have any shot of taking a Democratic majority.
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| Trump with Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson |
In 2020, Wisconsin was the tipping point state in the contest between Joe Biden & Donald Trump, and was very close (decided by 21k votes, less than a percentage point between them). In 2024, this state will also be close, and will continue to be a dance that the state has perfected in the last decade-Madison & Milwaukee versus the rest of the state. For Trump, there's room to grow here. We've talked a lot about Trump's weaknesses as a candidate in this article, but he has strengths too, and one of them is a unique appeal with rural voters. In Wisconsin, that's a lot of opportunity, and while the Democrats have seen steep declines in the rural regions of the Badger State, that doesn't mean the floor has fallen out yet-there's still room for them to go down further. On Biden's side, though, you've got two advantages-one is that Dane County (Madison) seems to somehow get bluer every cycle, to the point where it's become a bit of a running joke on Election Twitter. The second, and maybe more crucial, is that the Milwaukee suburbs continue to become, while not blue, at least less red. This is a big part of why Republicans can stay competitive here-the three main Milwaukee suburbs (Waukesha, Ozaukee, & Washington, collectively called the WOW counties) have 640k citizens, and are the bedrock of Republican strategy in the state-the more votes they hemorrhage there, the more votes they have to pick up in the less densely-populated rural areas. Wisconsin will be close, but these are the two dynamics in the state to watch.
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| Biden with Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock |
I put Georgia #1 for a variety of reasons. For starters, it was the closest (percentage-wise) state in 2020. Biden won it by just two-tenths of a percentage point, which is basically just a few city blocks in Atlanta making the difference. The state also had a unique 2022. While Democrats were able to deliver the most important race on the map (Raphael Warnock's Senate victory), they didn't make any other flips. Unlike Wisconsin, Arizona, Michigan, & Pennsylvania, they didn't win the governor's race, and they didn't win any seats down-ballot (which while they lost the governor's race there, they did achieve in Nevada). This can be attributed in part to Brian Kemp being a uniquely good candidate for Republicans in the governor's race and Stacey Abrams being a uniquely bad one (sorry, but at this point there's no denying Abrams was all midterm hype, at least in terms of her politicking abilities), but plenty of bad candidates won in 2022 based off of the Dobbs decision against arguably better candidates. That Georgia Democrats couldn't pull it off makes me wonder what the precise formula is here. Georgia is trending Democratic, it's true (the Atlanta metro region threatens to turn the state into Illinois at some point if it continues this way), but it's not there yet in 2024-it'd be easy to see Trump running up votes in the rural communities, putting a disproportionate amount of pressure on Biden to deliver not just sky-high numbers in Atlanta, but also strong votes in the Black Belt region of the state, where he was helped last time by Raphael Warnock. I don't feel confident in any state at this point flipping (honestly, I'd probably predict an exact copy of 2020's map if forced to today), but Georgia is the one I'm least confident in, and is a state that any type of Trump rebound would get him a victory.
Good as always, John.
ReplyDeleteBiden losing Georgia, while still winning the presidency, would be devastating for 2026. It would be hard to see Ossoff winning re-election. As it is, no one from the president's party has defended a Senate seat that the other party won in the preceding presidential election since Joe Manchin in 2010 (and for incumbents, Olympia Snowe in 2006). I'd hate to see him end up with Kay Hagan's fate.
AV-I think that's true. Though I think Georgia is in a weird area as a state, unless (to your point) it's actually North Carolina in 2008 rather than Virginia in 2008. But it does read as a state that is actively moving left because of the Atlanta metro. I just think that in a world where Trump is doing better than we expect (which is very, very possible...it's too early to tell), Georgia regressing a little bit wouldn't be out-of-the-question.
ReplyDeleteAs far as Ossoff, I think there are too many variables to write him off in 2026 in any capacity-we don't know the candidate quality (i.e. what if Marjorie Taylor Greene decides she should be a Senator when she's off of every committee again under a Speaker Jeffries?) or if some of the 2022 metrics (namely, higher turnout in the blue-trending suburbs while Trump voters stay home) will translate again to 2026, in which case Ossoff would be fine. But yes, worst case scenario for him would be a Biden presidency where Joe dropped Georgia in his second victory.