Trump’s Path to 270
It's depressingly short.
A team of reporters and graphics designers at WSJ asks, “What Does It Take to Flip the 2024 Battleground States?“
Their setup:
The nation is becoming more diverse and more educated. Growing Latino and Asian-American communities are changing the voter composition in many states. The number of white, working-class voters—a majority of the electorate as recently as 2008—continues to shrink with each election.
These trends, combined with changes in candidate choices by various voter groups, mean that the 2024 presidential candidates are navigating a landscape different from earlier elections.
Our Swing-States Dial shows how such shifts in the seven battleground states can alter the outcome of the presidential election. Even small movements in voter turnout or party preference among a single subgroup can tip not just one swing state, but multiple states—and therefore the Electoral College.
What is this Dial of which they speak?
The Dial considers three inputs to create different election-outcome scenarios:
- Which Americans make up the voter pool? Latino voters, for example, are a growing force in the electorate and are likely to exceed the 10% share of all voters they posted in 2020. White, working-class voters—those without a college degree—are projected to fall by nearly 2 percentage points.
- Which Americans will choose to vote? Will young voters sit out the election, in part because of anger at U.S. policy in the Israel-Hamas war? Will former President Donald Trump drive up turnout among white, working-class voters?
- Which candidate wins their vote? Will college-educated voters continue their Democratic tilt? Will Republicans increase their share of voters without college degrees?
The feature is interactive, allowing readers to play with each of these inputs for each of the seven swing states. I won’t try to replicate that here.
Their state-by-state analysis is interesting, though, emphasizing just how “swing” these states are.
Pennsylvania
White, working-class voters are hugely important to Trump, providing 57% of all the votes he received nationally in 2020. This group remains a majority of the voter pool in the swing states of the industrial north: Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. In Pennsylvania, they cast 53% of the ballots in 2020, according to AP VoteCast, a large survey of the electorate that year.
That is such a big share that only a 1-point increase in Republican support among this group would flip the state from President Biden to Trump—even as its ranks give way to a younger cohort that is more diverse and educated.
Educational attainment—whether someone has a four-year college degree—has divided white voters sharply into those backing Democratic candidates and those backing Republicans. The same hasn’t been true among Black or Latino voters. Nationally, Trump in 2020 won white voters without a four-year degree by 25 percentage points, while Biden won white college graduates by 7 points.
Georgia
Black voters, by contrast, weren’t divided by their level of education: Biden won more than 90% support among those with and without degrees. And he won more than 60% support among Latino voters with and without degrees.
Black voters are one of the most loyal and important components of the Democratic coalition. Will they turn out this year? That question is particularly important in Georgia.
Biden won the state in 2020 by a closer margin than in any other battleground, partly because of a big increase in turnout among Black voters: 64% in 2020 compared with 59% in 2016. It was the first time a Democrat carried Georgia since Bill Clinton won it in 1992. If the turnout rate among these voters slips to the 2016 level this year, the state would flip back to Trump.
Nevada
In Nevada, Latino voters accounted for 16% of ballots cast in 2020, up 5 points from 2008, according to Catalist, a Democratic voter-data firm.
Democrats’ winning margin has shrunk in recent elections. Another big shift in Nevada would flip the state to the GOP.
Nevada also has one of the largest shares of young voters among the swing states, many of them Latino. Latino voters under the age of 30 swung 9 points away from Democrats in 2020 compared with 2016, Catalist found, while those over age 65 shifted by only 3 points.
It’s noteworthy that, six of these seven swing states went for Biden in 2020, giving him a 306-232 Electoral College win. Reapportionment pursuant to the 2020 Census would reduce the margin to 303-235, which is where the Dial is set by default. Similarly, the dials for turnout default to the 2020 numbers.
Simply reducing the turnout of voters under 30 OR that of Blacks and Hispanics by small percentages puts Georgia back into Trump’s column. And even a 1% uptick in the turnout of over-65s for Trump is then enough to give Trump Arizona and Wisconsin—and the win (272-266).
We don’t need a dramatic shift of Black and Hispanic support to Trump—which I deem extremely unlikely—for him to win. All it takes is a 3% or so decrease in their turnout.
As I have said in the past, it looks like this is an election for the Democrats to lose as much as for the Republicans to win. Moreso if one believes Republican fortunes are diminished by who Trump and the MAGAts are.
I think we underestimate how many Americans want an authoritarian in office.
It’s astonishing that we’re even considering this. JFC, people never learn.
My biggest concern is Democrats sitting this out because “bOtH paRTiEs ArE the SaMe” nonsense.
The choice might not be ideal, but it is clear. Angry Authoritarian with a side of delusion, or an old realist who knows what he’s doing. Again, JFC.
You know all the time travel fantasies about going back in time to kill hitler?
Well, there’s no time travel involved now.
This entire exercise essentially assumes the white working-class voters are there for Trump, which I would say is not in evidence. As discussed in previous threads, center-Right voters do not appear to be as energized as they were in 2020: the Biden “threat” is now 4 years old and America hasn’t fallen to the wolves; the GOP has won some pretty critical battles through court shenanigans; and few of the preferred Republican out-groups have visible strength under this administration.
Trump is not bringing new blood to this fight – His People have sunk their cost in him already – and a lot of the energizing issues from 3-4 years ago are essentially gone, often “managed” at the local and state levels. But we will never talk about potential malaise among the Republican constituency because, as always, the only people with agency are Democrats.
Apart from the year of inflation that we’re not getting back, Biden’s presidency has been pretty stable and static, and it feels like this election will be more like 2012 than 2020.
There is no way the American people are going to elect a fraud like Trump. I said that in 2016 too. All it takes for Trump to win is a blow up in Ukraine, Gaza, or elsewhere, or an uptick in inflation, or a butterfly wing flap in the Amazon.
OTB offers excellent political commentary and discussion. Maybe we should start thinking more about the consequences of a Trump win and planning for them. I’ll offer a few thoughts:
Palestinians and Ukrainians are screwed. Europe will have to face a newly militant Russia without us. Iran will build nukes. But I’m more interested in domestic effects, i.e. effects on me.
Immigrants are screwed. Minorities are screwed, as de facto discrimination is accepted and the cops are encouraged to implement Wilhoit’s Law.
Tariff’s will probably rise, somewhat willy-nilly. This will probably ensure Trump follows the unbroken tradition, going back to the turn of the last century, of Republican presidents having a recession in their first term.
An epidemic becomes more likely, and if it occurs it will run wild.
Taxes overall will go down, but being below the top 5%, mine will go up.
The plan for Social Security appears to be to let the surplus run out around 2035 and be reluctantly forced to cut benefits. After that, it’s privatization. Goldman-Sachs can’t let a pile of money that big sit without them getting a cut. Actuarily, I may be out of the system ’til then.
We will become, like Hungary, an autocracy with elections. Schools will become the indoctrination factories GOPs project they are now.
Being old and retired, I can probably ride it out until I have to go into an unregulated nursing facility without low pay immigrant employees. Anybody else have thoughts?
@Jen:
To “Angry Authoritarian with a side of delusion” you could add “ignorant, vengeance-driven churl.”
Don’t know how to tell you this, but it will be Trump’s second term. Common people did all right during Trump’s first term. The DC denizens were very unhappy. But Trump lit a fire under NATO so they weren’t completely flatfooted when the Ukrainians ruined the plan for a quick surrender to Putin as seen in how Biden offered Zelensky a flight out to which Zelensky replied, I weapons, not chartered escape flights.
Trump also caused a rethink of the China fetish among business leaders causing them to be prepared for the current problems starting in China. Even Apple is moving production to other countries.
And Trump didn’t give the Iranians billions of dollars to use for their nuke program, he had them on the ropes with sanctions as the Abraham Accords brought the Arabic world together with Israel.
You may think Trump will be bad, but please try to temper your thoughts with a bit of reality.
@JKB: He did have a helluva recession, though. And likely would again.
The electoral college system clearly makes it possible for Trump to win in 2024. Trump won in 2016 without a majority of the votes as did Bush in 2000. This is a legacy of the compromises at the founding of the country a quarter of a millennium ago. We instituted direct election of senators in 1913. It is time to go to direct election of Presidents.
@JKB: It takes some chutzpah to give Trump credit for Ukraine’s ability to resist Russia.
@Steven L. Taylor:
Chutzpah is the wrong word.
@Kurtz: Fair.
Trump did authorize for lethal weapons to be sent to Ukraine, instead of the blankets that was all Obama would allow. And that was after the Ukrainians foolishly believed the career US officials who promised to protect them if they gave up their nuclear arsenal. One thing is apparent, never give up nukes for American assurances. Even if meant at the time, sooner or later, Democrats will control the White House.
But more importantly, Trump lit a fire under the deadbeat NATO countries in Europe who were better prepared to help Ukraine a few years later.
The 2024 election is the same as the 2016 and 2020 election in that Dems need to win WI, MI, and PA. All three states are within 2% in a poll that came out today, meaning that they are within the margin of error. Wisconsin seems to have been trending blue lately. The Biden campaign needs to redouble its efforts in the other two states. They need to have field offices in all major cities and register a thousand voters daily. Biden needs to visit each state weekly.
@Kurtz:
It is the right word. It just doesn’t pack the right punch anymore, after over 8 years of Orange verbal diarrhea being thrown around with abandon.
Just as “credulity” doesn’t quite capture the willingness of the MAGAts to believe lies so transparent they make glass seem fully reflective by comparison.
@JKB:
This is a popular assertion among Trump supporters, but (unsurprisingly) is unsupported by fact. NATO countries had already been increasing their defense spending as a percentage of GDP before Trump’s election, and the rate of increase did not change during his administration.
@JKB:
Mass death, record job loss, riots, lockdowns, and insurrection were great for common people — after Trump’s first three years of economic growth were slower than both Obama’s last three and Biden’s first three?
Nah.
Racists, homophobes, and billionaires did great under Trump. Common people not so much, hence why he lost to Biden by millions of votes. Of course the sore losers denying the reality of that loss must lie about Drowsy Don’s failed presidency — including his repeated attempts to sell out Ukraine to Putin.
“Lit a fire under” = “pulled the rug out from under” by siding with Putin and publicly saying he does not care if Putin attacks Europe. Only a Trumper could spin treasonous abandonment of special allies into a strategic positive. Standard gaslighting from abusers: ‘Me hitting, traumatizing and neglecting you made you a stronger person! My hostility was good for you!’
Sure, Jan.
@gVOR10:
It’s genuinely weird to read something like that and see inside the mind of someone largely detached from reality. I mean…
Europe will have to face a newly militant Russia without us. Iran will build nukes.
As MANY have pointed out, Trump was actually tougher on Russia in office than Obama was. And the idea that Trump would sit back and let Iran get nukes is truly bizarre. Literally EVERY piece of available evidence supports Trump giving Israel the greenest of lights to do whatever they want to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons.
Tariff’s will probably rise, somewhat willy-nilly.
A statement made by someone utterly ignorant of Biden’s trade policy.
The plan for Social Security appears to be to let the surplus run out around 2035 and be reluctantly forced to cut benefits.
Quick! Who is the President right now? Who controls the Senate? Who controlled the House the first two years of the Biden Administration? What have they even proposed, let alone done to deal with the problems of Social Security?
We will become, like Hungary, an autocracy with elections.
Written while Democrats are trying to throw the presumptive GOP nominee in prison.
Trump may be the slight favorite to win at the moment, but it’s no sure thing. What is certain is that reality is going to bite a lot of you in the butt, probably sooner than later.
@TheRyGuy: That’s some selective cherry picking, but this:
I am really really REALLY tired of seeing this from the pro-Trump crowd. If he hadn’t VIOLATED THE LAW HE WOULDN’T BE IN COURT RIGHT NOW.
Trump has gotten away with a monumental amount of sh!t his whole entire life, from being such an academic screw up he ended up in a military prep school to skating by money laundering charges in his casinos to continuously LYING ON HIS TAXES, that neither he nor his supporters understand that he made this particular bed.
Seriously, just stop with that stupid, incorrect argument. It does you no favors at all.
@TheRyGuy:
Like that 2020 loss sore loser crybaby Trump still won’t accept, or like that Red Wave 2022 y’all swore was coming?
You mean Republicans picked an America-hating traitor, pervert, and criminal who’s echoing Nazi rhetoric.
It’s not Democrats fault Republicans’ preferred candidate is a thug who ran for office in the middle of a crime spree. Trump stole and refused to return sensitive national security documents, incited the Jan 6 terror attack to complete his coup to overthrow the US government, and falsified business records to hide election-related hush money payments.
Per laws adopted long before MAGA, these are crimes. It’s not autocratic to hold a serial lawbreaker accountable; prosecutors are right to do so. Conservatives are dead wrong to insist Trump is above the law.
Prevented Trump and Republicans from getting rid of it.
Many delusional Fox News sheep? Treason Trump publicly stating he believes Putin more than US intelligence, then saying he does not care if Putin attacks Europe ≠ Trump being tougher on Russia than Obama. (Not that it matters, since Obama is not running in 2024.)
I’d call you “detached from reality,” but more relevant is that you’re just like Trump: a patholgical liar. Hopefully not one that, unlike Trump, praised Jeff Epstein and repeatedly sexualized his daughter.
@Jen:
But you see, according to the MAGAS, Trump committed NO crimes. Everything he did was either perfectly aboveboard or a frame-up by the Deep State.
@CSK: And if that were true, in the least, these cases would have been thrown out of court. Which, I know blah blah they are all in on it. Which DOESN’T MAKE ANY GxDDAMN SENSE EITHER. He appointed some of these judges! He broke the law well before he became president!
I know these people cannot be made to see reason, but this accusation, in particular, gets under my skin because Trump has spent a lifetime getting away with things. He’s under this microscope by his own choice, and he needs to live with that decision.
@Jen:
@DK:
Not to mention all these 80+ charges were filed before Lardass declared he was running.
And, really, as crazy idiot conspiracies go, this is a terrible one.
If there were a “deep state” that is so powerful, they’d have replaced his Secret Service details with highly trained Hamas Ninja assassins, who’d dispose of him and make it look like Ted Cruz did it to impress the Trailer Queen.
@Jen:
Oh, quite so. But many Trumpkins are so dedicated to the notion that The Mango Menace is a faithful husband, a devoted father, a devout Christian, and a brilliant and thoroughly honest businessman that they go nuts when he’s entirely justifiably accused of a crime.
It reminds me of the Sandy Hook truthers, who maintain that the tragedy was staged, despite the fact that all of the parents, children, and school personnel as well as an army of cops, EMTs, medical practitioners, clergy, funeral directors, and media would have had to be in on the conspiracy.
@Slugger:
Recall what it took to get direct election of Senators. A majority of states had implemented some sort of workaround that required their legislatures to follow the popular vote. The House had passed multiple draft Amendments that died in the Senate. IIRC, we were within three or four states of calling a Constitutional convention. (I may have the specific number wrong, but we were getting quite close.) That last was what finally got the Senate to pass an Amendment to send to the states; they were terrified of what a convention might do besides direct election.
@Kathy:
Especially from the rape-apologist MAGA frauds who screamed “Lock Her Up!” at Hillary over thirty years of fruitless investigations.
But to them, it’s an anti-democratic partisan plot when disgusting, Nazi-quoting Epstein-bestie Trump faces the courts for…
…inciting a terror attack on Congress with his sore loser election lies.
It’s actually a miracle that modern conservatives haven’t died of drowning, overcome by the pool of hypocritical bullsh*** they swim in all day. Deplorable, un-American far right phonies, totally full of crap.
It starts with the right’s fake-ass religious views and trickles down to everything else. Pretending to be holier than thou, moralistic Christians but just as often proudly selfish, racist, mean, stone-throwing Darwinists. Saw it up close aa I was a kid growing up in the Georgia exurbs. Whole lives rooted in dishonesty. They need to be at the therapist’s office, not Trump rallies.
@JKB:
You can’t possibly really be this ignorant.
@JKB:
Wait, are we talking about the Trump who demanded made-up dirt on Biden as a condition for military aid to Ukraine? That Trump? Seriously?
Not only is Obama not running in 2024, but he was not running in 2016.
During the 2016 campaign Hillary had a military assistance plan for Ukraine that included lethal weapons, which would have been a significant bump up from the Obama administration’s UAVs, tactical vehicles, counter-fire radars, etc. (and maybe even blankets).
Trump was not fully supportive when his administration eventually sent Javelins to Ukraine and it was stipulated that the missiles be kept under US control in western Ukraine. Then there’s the whole thing about Trump extorting Zelensky for a personal political hit-job favor in exchange for more US military aid.
@JKB: I didn’t do all right during Trump’s term. My taxes almost doubled because he got rid of the head of household and decreased the amount a dependent could make to almost nothing to be no longer considered a dependent.
Oh, and my dad died during COVID. No big, though, right?
@JKB: And that was after the Ukrainians foolishly believed the career US officials who promised to protect them if they gave up their nuclear arsenal.
The Budapest Memorandum did not guarantee military intervention. Rather, Russia, UK, and USA promised to “respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine.” If Ukraine were to become a victim of an act of aggression, the parties agreed to “seek immediate United Nations Security Council action”. They also agreed to consult if “a situation arises which raises a question concerning these commitments.” The UK, USA, and other Western powers have met their commitments under the Memorandum, and more.