Want to know how the 2024 presidential campaign between Trump and Biden is most likely to turn out? Watch three states: Georgia, Wisconsin, and Arizona.
In 2016, Trump won all three states as he won the presidency over Hillary Clinton. However, in 2020 Biden narrowly flipped all three states in defeating Trump. Biden carried each state by less than 1%. To be exact, because often in politics one must be, Biden won Georgia by .2% or 11,779 votes. He won Arizona by .3% or 10,457 votes. He won Wisconsin by the comparatively “comfortable” margin of .7% or 20,682 votes.
Thus, a total of 42,918 votes in 3 three states provided Biden with the total margin of victory in a national election where over 154 million Americans voted.
If Biden had lost these 3 states, his electoral count would have dropped from 306 to 269, and Trump’s electoral count would have increased from 232 to, yes, you guessed it, 269. The presidential election would have been TIED in the electoral college. The Constitution requires a candidate to receive a majority of the electoral college. Therefore, a flip of 42,918 votes and the 2020 presidential election would have been decided in the House of Representatives.
The last time that happened was in 1824 when John Quincy Adams defeated Andrew Jackson in the House of Representatives when the 4 candidates for president split the vote to the point that none of them carried a majority of the electoral college.
The key to each of these 3 states?
- College-educated white-collar suburban voters;
- Blue-collar voters with little to no college;
- Young voters under the age of 29.
Let’s take a brief look at each group.
For over a generation, college-educated suburbanites voted Republican and, in fact, led the way for Republican takeovers in states across the south and west. These suburban voters backed Reagan and then his successor, Bush, in 1988. With a few deviations, Republicans won the suburbs with the support of these well-educated, white collars voters.
However, beginning with Obama in 2008 and accelerating during the Trump years, these suburban college educated voters began voting Democrat. Today, a majority are cultural Democrats who will occasionally vote Republican. Places like North Fulton County (where I once lived in the early 2000s) in Georgia now elect mostly Democrats up and down the ballot. Republicans in the suburbs of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, now struggle to win elections while they are blown out in the suburbs of Madison. It’s a similar story in much of the Phoenix suburbs. In fact, Biden became the first Democrat presidential candidate to win Maricopa County (the dominant county in Phoenix suburbs) since Harry Truman in 1948.
To flip these 3 states, Trump will need to shrink the margins of defeat among these college-educated suburbanites who don’t like his tone and rhetoric, worry about the issue of abortion, and feel more culturally at home with Democrats. These voters felt economically secure and personally safe enough in 2020 to indulge their personal distaste for Trump by voting for Biden. This year, they are far more concerned about their personal well-being and have a sense (accurate, by the way) that they were safer and more prosperous during the Trump years than now during the Biden presidency.
Second, Trump won the presidency in 2016 largely with the strong support of blue-collar, non-college-educated voters who swung decisively to his candidacy after largely backing Democrat presidential candidates for literally decades. Trump especially broke through the “blue wall” in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin with the strong support of these blue collar voters. In 2020, Trump still carried the majority of their votes. However, his margins among these non-college-educated voters shrank, and this loss of support doomed Trump in a handful of the key states he ended up losing. At the moment, polling indicates that Trump is back on track with these crucial voters.
Third, younger voters under the age of 29. These youngsters voted decisively for Biden, just as they did for Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. With these voters, it’s not the percentage so much as the total turnout that bears watching. In 2016, their failure to vote at Obama levels helped doom Hillary Clinton. However, in 2020, they voted at record levels and, without question, helped push Biden over the top in these 3 closest states.
To be clear, much else will matter in 2024. Can Trump continue increasing his share of the vote with Latinos as he did in 2020? Will hard-left voters who are upset with Biden over his support for Israel turn out in lower numbers? Will moderate Republicans be unhappy over another Trump candidacy turnout for the Republican nominee? All of these factors will matter in the “Big 3” of Georgia, Wisconsin, and Arizona.
In addition, 3 additional states will also be crucial: Pennsylvania (which Biden carried by 1.17% after Trump carried it by .72% in 2016), Michigan (Biden carried it by 2.8% after Trump carried it by .16% in 2016) and North Carolina (which Trump carried by 1.4% in 2020).
Bottom line: the polling currently shows Trump with a slight but consistent lead in Georgia and Arizona. The polling is less conclusive but still favorable for Trump at the moment in Wisconsin. Overall, Biden consistently polls at the lowest levels for any president in modern American history. Stay tuned. Much lies ahead.
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