by Mary Lou Masters
The upcoming presidential election could potentially come down to Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and Wisconsin, according to the Sabato’s Crystal Ball 2024 Electoral College predictions released Thursday.
The nonpartisan report, facilitated by the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, labels the four states as “toss-ups” based on the 2020 election and 2022 midterms. The 2024 landscape slightly favors the Democrats and will likely be another matchup between former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden, according to the report.
“Democrats start closer to the magic number of 270 electoral votes in our initial Electoral College ratings than Republicans,” the report read. “But with few truly competitive states and a relatively high floor for both parties, our best guess is yet another close and competitive presidential election next year — which, if it happened, would be the sixth such instance in seven elections.”
Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin were the closest states in the 2020 election, and Nevada has sided with the Democratic candidate in the last four cycles but by increasingly smaller margins, according to the report.
In 2020, Biden beat Trump in Wisconsin by 0.7 points, in Arizona by 0.3 points and in Georgia by 0.2 points, according to Politico. In Nevada, Biden won by 2.4 points in 2020, Hillary Clinton won by 2.4 points in 2016 and former President Barack Obama won by 6.6 points in 2012 and 12.4 points in 2008.
As first seen in @playbookdc: Our first Electoral College Ratings for 2024 are out today. Expect another highly competitive and close presidential election in 2024. Our ratings start with just 43 Toss-up electoral votes at the outset. Read the full analysis by @kkondik on… pic.twitter.com/Zsbuw8ObOl
— Center for Politics at UVA (@Center4Politics) June 29, 2023
The “toss-up” states have 43 total electoral votes, with Arizona having 11 electoral votes, Georgia having 16, Nevada having 6 and Wisconsin having 10. North Carolina, with 16 electoral votes, and Maine’s second congressional district, with 1 electoral vote, lean Republican. Michigan, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire, which all lean Democratic, and have 15, 19 and 4 electoral votes, respectively.
Sabato’s Crystal Ball predicts that 260 electoral votes “at least” lean Democratic and 235 “at least” lean Republican. If neither presidential candidate garners 270 electoral votes, the Republican-controlled House will decide the victory, which will likely result in a GOP presidency, according to the report.
Sabato’s Crystal Ball currently predicts that both Biden and Trump will win their party’s nominations, despite the president’s low approval ratings and the former president’s legal troubles, with Biden appearing “to be on course to renomination.”
The Real Clear Politics (RCP) averages for the 2024 Democratic and Republican primary, based on the most recent polling, indicates that Biden and Trump are leading by 49.6 and 30.9 points, respectively. For a general election head-to-head between the two, the RCP average suggests Trump would win by 0.6 points in 2024 against Biden.
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Mary Lou Masters is a reporter at Daily Caller News Foundation.
Photo “People Voting” by Phil Roeder. CC BY 2.0.
