The Keystone to the Election
1700s-1800s: William Penn’s Woods.
The land was the center of the 13 British colonies. Colonists wanted more rights and representation from the Crown. Philadelphia served as the backbone of trade, commerce, and meeting ground as an excellent halfway point by horseback between the southern states and fiery New England colonies to the north who were ready for a Revolution.
Pennsylvania is the Keystone to the forming of the United States, surviving the U.S. civil war, and building this great country via steel, coal, and rail. Now it serves as the Keystone to the Presidential election. Whoever wins the Commonwealth, has more than 90% odds to win the White House as it serves as a keystone to get to 270.
Flip-Flop Flippity Flop or Gone and Never Ever Getting Back Together?
In this polarized era of U.S. politics, there is always a state or two that bucks the trend and flirts with the other party, but eventually goes back to its traditional roots four years later. The same can be said for a state or two that flips overnight and never goes back.
In 2008: Indiana and North Carolina were won by Obama. They have stayed Republican since. In the same election: Colorado and Virginia went to Democrats overnight after being rather reliable Republican states in federal elections. They have stayed reliably Democrat at the federal level.
2016: Iowa is probably the best example of never going back after being the lynchpin of picking Obama over Clinton and voting for him twice. Meanwhile Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin were once the bastion of the “Blue Firewall” to make it “impossible” for Republicans to get to 270. Suddenly that wall cracked and entered swing state territory.
Four Years Ago: Georgia and Arizona flipped and were once reliably Republican. Which way will they go along with the Rust Belt? So much of the future coalitions weigh on that answer in how they vote in 2024 in a rather 50/50 coin-toss election.
The states that could buck the trend this cycle are: Nevada, North Carolina, and dare I say Iowa?
In Nevada, the demographic changes are prime for a Republican victory here, but it's also fool's gold. It's probably the one and only state that overstates Republicans consistently in polls.
The only reason I bring up Iowa is J. Ann Selzer’s poll that was released Saturday evening. She is simply the Gold Standard for Iowa Polls. She was within a point or two in 2016 and 2020. She has Harris winning Iowa by 3. To directly quote Dan Pfeiffer on Twitter on Saturday, there are three options what this poll means:
1. Selzer is right and Harris wins in a massive landslide
2. This poll is just a bad poll (it happens, but it happens to Selzer less than others)
3. Harris isn’t really winning IA but the poll is capturing late stage momentum that bodes well for WI,MI,PA.
If it’s #3 and tied to abortion and Women moving further to the left, it’s over for Trump via the Rust Belt. It’s probably the most plausible of the three explanations. Her poll keeps Independents essentially the same as 2020, but has a massive shift in Republican women going Democrat and a noticeable shift in seniors going Democrat. See the Establishment Republican Factor (below) for why this concerns me.
Emerson (who has polled Iowa ok) has Trump +10. A +10 margin in Iowa would be indicative of a slightly favoring Trump in the Rust Belt. 7-9 points in Iowa means it’s too close to call on the national level.
The Great Lakes States
Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin.
Since 1992, all have vote the same way in every election. In 1988, George HW Bush won PA and Michigan, but lost Wisconsin. Ironically if they were to split today, it may be Wisconsin as the GOP’s best chance of the three.
Early Voting in Milwaukee and Dane County (Madison) appear to be less than 2020, while the rural areas are surging. That bodes well for Republicans. On the flip side, the WOW counties surrounding Milwaukee (Waukesha, Ozaukee, and Washington) were once the bastion of Republican votes are now becoming more Democratic, even if they are still GOP counties, just by a lower margin. Door County (northeast of Green Bay) is a classic bellwether. Brown County (Green Bay), Trump must win by at least 8 points (if not north of 10) to be the favorite in that state.
A similar trend is found in Pennsylvania. The collar counties (Chester, Delaware, Montgomery, and Bucks) are trending more Democrat (so is Lancaster) while the rural areas trend more to the right. Of all the early vote states, PA looks best for the Democrats as they have done better with lower and higher propensity voters than the GOP but Pennsylvania is still one of the few states left that really only votes on Election Day.
Michigan is perhaps the most perplex. It’s certainly turned the most liberal since 2016 of the three and is perhaps the biggest uphill climb for Trump. Having said that, the demographics are challenging for Harris to connect with the working class in margins Biden got in 2020. The wild card is the Arab population.
CAIR has consistently polled Arabs and found Jill Stein ahead of Harris for how they intend to vote. In fact, sometimes in Michigan, CAIR had Harris in third behind Stein and Trump. That factor alone could sway Michigan back to Trump should those results hold. Regardless, it’s a slight advantage for Harris in the Rust Belt. The results are probably somewhere between 2016 and 2020 for these three states on already razor thin margins.
Sun Belt
Arizona, Nevada, North Carolina, and Georgia.
The early voting looks fantastic for Republicans. Cannibalization is really the only concern here. Clinton felt good about early voting numbers in 2016, but then no one showed up on Election Day as their base already voted early. Could that happen here for Republicans? To some extent. The data I’ve been shown is a significant portion of the early vote is low propensity voters for the GOP (meaning they voted in 0-2 of the last four presidential elections). The numbers are not as good for Democrats as higher propensity voters are more so voting early. These trends are also largely nationwide too. In the end, this essentially means that if high propensity voters show up on Election Day for the GOP, it’s advantage them. There’s only one concern there (see Establishment Republican factor below).
Of the four: Nevada looks the best for the GOP, but I need to see the final mail vote Monday night for Clark County to be sure. The demographic changes are prime for a Republican victory here. It’s a state that has about 85% votes complete before Election Day. Republicans have about a 40,000 vote advantage at the time this was posted and have made great gains in voter registration. Tonight’s and tomorrows voting updates will reveal that state’s advantage, but the culinary union is thinking Trump. They have not been wrong since the Harry Reid era. If Trump’s margin is under 75,000 in Clark County (which it likely is), the rest of the state can carry him over.
Arizona is doing well too. Arizona’s concern is what’s said below (Establishment Republican). Trump must keep Maricopa County close or win outright. North Carolina and Georgia: The GOP is doing their part. The only question is if the trends of the people moving into those states is enough to surpass the Republican base. It will be close. Regardless, the Sun Belt appears to be advantage Trump.
The Trend is Your (Eventual) Friend
2000 Swing States: What if I told you the closest state in the 2000 election was not Florida? It was actually New Mexico and it was by 366 votes.
Most of the swing states of 2000 (in both directions) are not really swing states anymore. The battle ground back then were: Florida, Ohio, New Mexico, New Hampshire, West Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas, Missouri, Oregon, Maine, Minnesota, Iowa, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Arizona.
Notice how only the last four (5 if Iowa is in play as noted earlier) are still competitive today? That’s because coalitions and voting demographics change over time. These occur about once every 30 years and we are entering a new coalition/realignment dynamic.
Seriously: If you said back in 2006 that in 18 years it would be Democrats who would celebrate the endorsements of the Bush’s and Cheney’s for their candidates, you would have been sent to the nearest mental institution. Between 1932-2016, the only way Republicans won a Presidential election was if Nixon or a Bush (41 or 43) was on the ballot.
So of the states listed below, I am not predicting they flip in 2024, however, I will be looking at their trends and see how they compare with the 2012, 2016, and the 2020 elections. In 4-12 years, these states could be more competitive as the coalitions change assuming the margins become narrower than in the past. The states are: Texas, Nebraska, Kansas, New Mexico, Virginia, New Jersey, and New York.
Of those states, Texas is the most I know about. I lived there for nearly ten years. In late 2011/early 2012 I wrote an in depth report on the Lone Star State. By looking at data such as the decline of white birth rate, growth of Hispanic population, people moving to Texas from the Northeast (like me) and from California, and the majority of kids in school having their primary language be Spanish and not English led me to the following conclusion 12 years ago: Texas will be close in 2024, but probably still be Republican..in 2028 it will be Purple. I still stand by that prediction.
My analysis was by no means perfect. Whites and Democrats moving from liberal states grew faster than I predicted. On the flip side, Hispanics finally started to change and vote Republican as the once very liberal Rio Grande Valley (near and at the Border) went from solid Democrat to toss-up/tilt Republican. If not for the Rio Grande Valley flip, a Democrat probably wins one of the statewide races in Texas sometime between 2018-Now. The last time that happened was in 1994. Trump needs to win by at least 8 to keep Texas solidly red. I doubt that happens. Four to seven points is my prediction for him while Cruz’s margin could be as narrow as 2 points. There is no near term path to the White House for Republicans without Texas. Whites are becoming more liberal while minorities are becoming more conservative. This is why places like the Sun Belt, Trump is polling better than the Rust Belt and why once solid Republican states are seeing narrower margins while once solidly liberal states are seeing tightening margins too.
Virginia could be within 5 points, which is shocking since it’s a solid 10-point state for Democrats. Youngkin has done a remarkable job as Governor and the commonwealth is showing his coalition is coming out to vote. Harris will win Virginia, but if it’s narrow, that should indicate good news for Trump in states like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, but maybe just maybe states are starting to Balkanize and not identify with other states of similar demographics. COVID and inflation could be the key reasons why that’s happening.
Final Factors and Where to Look on Tuesday Night
U.S. Census
In 2022, the Census Bureau admitted it over counted in 8 states and undercounted in 6 (guess which way it mostly was too!). In Minnesota, had 26 fewer people not responded to the survey, it would have lost a House seat and thus an Electoral College vote (although that one would have gone to New York). The bigger ones are Rhode Island and Connecticut. If both lost theirs, they would have gone to Florida and Texas.
This means for the 2024 and 2028 elections (had the Census count been proper), Republicans could win the Presidency by 270 without taking a single Rust Belt swing state and instead only need the Sun Belt of NC, GA, and Arizona (assumes Maine and Nebraska evenly split as they did in 2016 and 2020).
The Establishment Republican Factor (Bush/Cheney/McCain/Haley)
To my surprise, I have not seen one poll that (internal or external) that tries to pinpoint and predict this type of voter. The evidence is there in 2020 in Arizona that they voted and voted Democrat. The state was R+8, however, Trump lost. This is because Independents went nearly 2 to 1 to Biden and a significant portion of McCain Republicans refused to back the MAGA candidates.
While Republicans made great gains in voter registration over the past 8 years, were those mostly blue collar Democrats finally updating their voter registration? Are Republicans now facing a similar issue where they have Republicans in their registration profile but flipped to Democrats and just haven’t updated their party affiliation?
In Virginia, Fairfax County has essentially a 75-25 split between Democrats and Republicans, yet in the 2024 primary, more people voted for Republicans (Haley and Trump) than in the Democrat primary. Virginia is an open primary state so it’s safe to assume a significant portion of Haley voters are Democrats who never vote Republican anyway.
In Pennsylvania, that’s not the case as the state is a closed primary system. In the PA Primary, 157,228 (or 16.50%) voted for Haley after she already withdrew. That’s not insignificant. Trump needs to gain at least 2/3s of those protest votes back to win the Keystone State.
Bellwether Counties to Watch
Vigo and Pike Counties in Indiana are classics.
The state closes first (with Kentucky) so go there first. For 68 years, Vigo County correctly predicted the winner of the Presidential election up until 2020. Maybe not as accurate as in the past, but demographics wise it’s now about the margins for white working class voters. Trump needs to win Vigo by at least 15.5 points to give a trend for the rest of the nation if he wants to win the Rust Belt compared to 2020.
Pike County, you want roughly a 53.5 point margin for Trump to see how the Rust Belt performs.
North Carolina
It should come in early as data is mostly released shortly after polls close. Nash County is the one to watch, just northeast of Raleigh and Research Triangle. It’s always been super close since 2004, but is perhaps going to left due to the jobs in the area. It’s demographically diverse as well and can show shifts in minorities and Anglos. In 2020, Biden won it by about 100 votes, but lost the state overall.
Cabarrus County just northeast of Charlotte is another to watch. Trump won it by 20 points in 2016 but only 9.5 in 2020 as people move near Charlotte for the growing economy there. If it halves again (Trump by 5 points or fewer) then Harris has a good chance to win the state.
Georgia's Baldwin County
Another state that should report nearly all of its vote shortly after polls close. It’s a more rural county but has colleges within it. Clinton and Biden barely won there. If Trump wants to win the state as Atlanta metro trends to the left, then he must win here. It’s probably the swing county for Georgia now.
Pennsylvania's Erie, Northampton, and Luzerne Counties
Erie and Northampton probably go with the winner. Luzerne (Wilkes-Barre) would need better margins than 2020 of roughly 15 points to Trump in order to counteract the Democrat gains in “The Collar” counties where with them plus Philadelphia counts for about 60% of the statewide vote. Trump does not need to win Luzerne (Scranton) or Alleghany (Pittsburgh) but the margins need to be tighter than 8.5 and 20 point margins respectively four years ago to win the state.
Closing Remarks
In September 1787 during the Constitutional Convention, Ben Franklin stated:
“I have often and often, in the course of the session, and the vicissitudes of my hopes and fears as to its issue, looked at that behind the President, without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting…”
…it was also the same month he told a citizen the Founding Fathers gave us a Republic, if you can keep it.
This election is tight. It’s not much of a swing from a comfortable Harris victory to Trump’s strongest showing in three elections. To quote U2: “The more you see the less you know, the less you find out as you go. I knew much more then, than I do now.” States with the lightest of shades I would not be surprised if they flipped the other way. The medium shades are states I am looking for trends in, even if they should easily go to the favored candidate.
In 2016: Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin, and Michigan had Republican governors while Pennsylvania was the only one with a Democrat governor. By 2024, all have Democrat governors with the exception of Georgia. Take that information and make of it what you will for why I wanted to mention that.
If Governor Shapiro was on the ticket, Democrats would win much more easily. If this was a DeSantis/Youngkin ticket for the GOP, you probably have a Republican victory over Harris/Shapiro. Those are all hypotheticals though. Are we back to a Grover Cleveland era or are we back to Democrats dominating federal elections as the GOP splits between Establishment, Conservative, and MAGA wings?
People moving since COVID may create a wasted voter issue for Republicans. Florida no longer being a toss-up due to conservatives moving from the Rust Belt may be the difference alone. It’s possible a reversal of 2016 happens where Trump wins the popular vote but loses the Electoral College. It’s doubtful, but not irrational.
There are whacky scenarios of NC, AZ, Wisconsin, and Nevada going Democrat, but PA, Georgia, and Michigan must go Republican to get to 269-269 tie.
Outside of my map, the next most logical path to me for Democrats is: PA and Wisconsin to Trump, Michigan Arabs vote the way they normally do (Harris) meaning she wins that state. Arizona and Nevada to Trump, but Georgia and North Carolina to Harris with the changing trends and demographics of those states. That gives Harris a 272-266 victory. Oh, and the final campaign stops of the Harris campaign are Michigan, Georgia, and North Carolina with none planned for PA and Wisconsin at the time of writing this article.
I say this with a broad stroke of the brush, but of these four categories, who is most likely to talk to a pollster in the final week before an election:
1. A MAGA Republican
2. Moderate/Undecided
3. Working Class
4. Progressives
Even the New York Times/Sienna final poll hints at this:
“Across these final polls, white Democrats were 16 percent likelier to respond than white Republicans. That’s a larger disparity than our earlier polls this year, and it’s not much better than our final polls in 2020 — even with the pandemic over. It raises the possibility that the polls could underestimate Mr. Trump yet again.”
Another narrow path is Nevada, Wisconsin, Michigan, and North Carolina to Harris, but Georgia, AZ, and PA to Trump (that’s 273-265 Harris). Those are in the less than 10% scenarios compared to the intro. Don’t sleep on New Hampshire either, but that one is a stretch when Trump’s best chance was in 2016 for it.
In 6 of the 7 Battleground states, Republicans are ahead or essentially tied in the early vote meaning whoever and gets out and votes more on Election Day, wins. Pennsylvania is the only one they are behind on by about 400,000 votes. That means it should be close. Historically, the GOP wins that head-to-head on Election Day except for Michigan. Independents likely decide the election.
What only matters is you go vote if you haven’t done so already.
4 November Update 8:45 PM EST
Pennsylvania Update November 4, 2024 (Election Eve Evening):
The final report of Pennsylvania mail ballots came out before the election. More mail votes can still be counted, but this is the final one we will have before Election Day votes are counted and revealed.
As of yesterday evening (November 3rd):
1,790,310 total votes by mail returned. The breakdown is as follows:
997,450 Democrat
587,546 Republican
205,323 Other
This means as of yesterday there was 409,804 more Democrat ballots than Republican ones.
As of 4 November's Update:
1,830,246 total votes by mail returned. The breakdown is as follows:
1,014,744 Democrat
602,601 Republican
212,901 Other
So just under 40,000 additional ballots were submitted today. Of that, the Democrats only netted 2,239 ballots over the Republicans. In other words: This is a disaster for Democrats with only a 412,143 advantage between the parties going into tomorrow. In 2020, it was over 1 million.
Granted, this is a different election. I do not expect voter turnout total overall to surpass 2020, but I do expect it to surpass 2016. Compared to 2016: Roughly 30% of the vote is already in. Compared to 2020: Roughly 26% of the vote is in. Split the difference and assume about 28% of the vote is in for 2020.
Others/Independents vote more liberal in the mail but vote more conservative in person on Election Day. Before the mail returns came back, the "general consensus" was the Democrat firewall in Pennsylvania needed to be roughly 500,000 for them to win the Keystone State.
48 hours ago there was a pathway to that. After the last two updates, it's an uphill climb (but not impossible).
Trump needs 54% of the remaining votes to win or ~R+10 on Election Day. In 2022, Election Day margin was +13; in 2020 it was R+19.
R+19 will not happen this cycle due to COVID. I suspect it will be slightly less than R+13 as well, but the window is absolutely there between R+10 and R+13.
With this information, make of it what you will.
Source for data above: Early Voting Tracker
