THE 2024 ELECTORAL COLLEGE MAP. Historically speaking, the 2024 presidential campaign is at a pretty advanced stage. At this point in some earlier races, we didn’t even know for sure who the candidates would be. Now, both parties have made clear their choice of nominee, the earliest that has ever happened, and we’ve been in general election mode for quite a while.
And that means it’s time to pay serious attention to the Electoral College map. I often use a site called 270towin.com, referring to the 270 electoral votes needed to secure the presidency. You can set the map to show the 2020 Trump-Biden results and then mess around with what the electoral totals would be if this or that state changed one way or the other.
Start by going back a few years. Former President Donald Trump won in 2016 by winning all the states Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) won in 2012 and adding victories in Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Iowa. It was a stunning 306 to 232 victory in the Electoral College. For years, many analysts had seen the upper Midwestern states as part of a Democratic “blue wall,” and Trump just smashed it down.
Trump lost in 2020 by holding most of the states he won in 2016 but losing Georgia, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. The results in some of those states were quite close, but in the Electoral College, Joe Biden won 306 to 232.
So now, with a Trump-Biden rematch, what does Trump have to do to win? The first thing to say is that the number of electoral votes in some states has changed because of the 2020 census. For example, in 2020 Trump won 38 votes for winning Texas. He will win 40 for winning Texas in 2024. Biden won 55 votes for winning California in 2020. He will win 54 by winning in 2024. Biden won in 2020 with 306 electoral votes. If he won the same states today, he would win 303 electoral votes and Trump would win 235.
How does Trump win? First, he has to hold the states he won in 2020. That appears to be quite possible. The only state Trump won in 2020 that is on the RealClearPolitics list of battleground states is North Carolina, where Trump is ahead of Biden by 5.4 points in the RealClearPolitics average of polls.
All the figures that follow are based on 2024 electoral votes for each state. When it comes to adding states, Trump needs to start by winning Georgia. That would take him from his 2020 total to 251 electoral votes. Then he needs Arizona. That would get him to 262. Trump is ahead of Biden in both those states in the RealClearPolitics averages, by 3.8 points in Georgia and 5 points in Arizona.
At that point, Trump would be only eight electoral votes away from winning the presidency. But how can he get there? Winning another key state in which he has a significant lead, Nevada, would give him just six electoral votes, taking him to 268 — two short of winning the presidency. He would still need to win something else.
The surest path to victory, if Trump were to win Georgia and Arizona, would be to win Pennsylvania, with 19 electoral votes, or Michigan, with 15, or Wisconsin, with 10. Any one of those would put Trump over the top. And right now Trump leads Biden in all those states in the RealClearPolitics average, but it is close — 1.8 points in Pennsylvania, 1.2 points in Michigan, and 0.5 points in Wisconsin.
There are other combinations by which Trump could win. He could win the 2020 states plus Georgia and Pennsylvania and end up with 270. He could win the 2020 states plus Georgia, Michigan, and Nevada and hit 272. He could win the 2020 states plus Arizona, Nevada, and Pennsylvania and get to 271.
By now you can see the importance of the Pennsylvania-Michigan-Wisconsin tier in returning Trump to the White House. Yes, he needs to start by winning Georgia and Arizona. But he wins by adding one of those three states. As far as other states are concerned — perhaps Trump could pull off a surprise victory in some state that is not currently close, but it’s not clear where that would be.
Yes, there are other combinations. It is even possible, although not likely, that there could be an Electoral College tie, 269 to 269. Given today’s political atmosphere, everyone should hope that does not happen.
But Trump’s task is one of those things that is both very simple and very hard: win all his 2020 states plus Georgia, Arizona, and one of Pennsylvania-Michigan-Wisconsin. And make sure there aren’t any surprises. It is entirely doable. Trump won in 2016 by winning key states by narrow margins. He lost in 2020 by losing them by narrow margins. In 2024, in a world in which majorities of voters deeply disapprove of the job Biden has done, Trump, even with all his current difficulties, could turn it around one more time.