2024 State by State Presidential Predictions

With less than a month before the November 5 Presidential election, I have a confession to make.  For the first time since 2000, I don't feel as though I have any legitimate insight as to who's gonna win this election.  That's not gonna stop me from making my quadrennial predictions, of course, but with all of the competing trends and untrustworthy polling, it feels like a genuine jump ball.  I won't be a bit surprised if Kamala Harris prevails either narrowly or decisively, and I won't be surprised if Donald Trump prevails either narrowly or decisively.  While my predictions below indicate a split decision among the seven primary battleground states, it wouldn't surprise me if Donald Trump swept them all.  And while it would surprise me if Kamala Harris won North Carolina, it wouldn't surprise me if she cleaned up in the other six.

The only thing I feel confident in stating is that if Kamala Harris wins, it will be because of reproductive rights, and if Donald Trump wins, it will be because of immigration.  These two issues represent the purest distillation of our bitterly divided country's priorities.  Reproductive rights are extremely salient among upscale and educated voters while downscale voters don't seem particularly moved by the issue.  Conversely, illegal immigration is spectacularly salient among downscale voters while upscale, educated voters tend to shrug with disinterest when the topic is litigated.  The election is thus, even more than usual, poised to be a tectonic battle between two groups that don't understand each other and are constantly talking past each other.  That means that the only consequential question is....which group will be larger?

Whenever Trump has been on the ballot in the past, the "deplorables" have charged the polls in unprecedented numbers to overwhelm the college boys, which is why I think a statistically tied polling landscape will ultimately tilt in Trump's direction.  On the other hand, the Dobbs backlash was a big deal in the midterms, enough to consolidate Democratic gains in upscale suburbs and throw off Republican-friendly polling models despite lackluster fundamentals for the incumbent party. Kamala Harris's blank-slate campaign about "joy" would be unlikely to win over enough suburban soccer moms to win if they weren't scared to death about their teenage daughters getting pregnant and having limited options to terminate.  Likewise, the guy who tried to have his Vice President murdered probably wouldn't be able to get across the finish line if a biracial working-class coalition wasn't existentially petrified by repeated images of mass humanity standing at the southern border getting a free ticket inside if they merely claim "asylum".

Still, only one of them can win.  Below I'll break down my expectations in the safe blue states, the safe red states, and the remainder of states that are either in the center or the periphery of the battleground....

Safe Biden States

California--Harris +25 (Biden +29)

Colorado--Harris +12 (Biden +13)

Connecticut--Harris +20 (Biden +20)

Delaware--Harris +16 (Biden +19)

District of Columbia--Harris +85 (Biden +87)

Hawaii--Harris +28 (Biden +29)

Illinois--Harris +15 (Biden +17)

Maine--Harris +9 (Biden +9)

Maryland--Harris +33 (Biden +33)

Massachusetts--Harris +32 (Biden +33)

New Jersey--Harris +13 (Biden +16)

New York--Harris +16 (Biden +23)

Oregon--Harris +16 (Biden +16)

Rhode Island--Harris +20 (Biden +21)

Vermont--Harris +34 (Biden +35)

Virginia--Harris +10 (Biden +10)

Washington--Harris +18 (Biden +19)

 

Safe Trump States

Alabama--Trump +29 (Trump +25)

Arkansas--Trump +29 (Trump +26)

Idaho--Trump +32 (Trump +31)

Indiana--Trump +19 (Trump +16)

Iowa--Trump +11 (Trump +8)

Kansas--Trump +14 (Trump +15)

Kentucky--Trump +28 (Trump +26)

Louisiana--Trump +21 (Trump +18)

Maine CD-2--Trump +8 (Trump +7)

Mississippi--Trump +20 (Trump +16)

Missouri--Trump +18 (Trump +15)

Montana--Trump +21 (Trump +16)

Nebraska--Trump +22 (Trump +19)

North Dakota--Trump +37 (Trump +33)

Oklahoma--Trump +36 (Trump +33)

South Carolina--Trump +13 (Trump +12)

South Dakota--Trump +29 (Trump +26)

Tennessee--Trump +24 (Trump +23)

Utah--Trump +24 (Trump +20)

West Virginia--Trump +41 (Trump +39)

Wyoming--Trump +43 (Trump +43)

And lastly, the potentially competitive states:

Alaska--Nobody has The Last Frontier on their list of battleground states but that's more based on lack of curiosity than any serious tracking of its sharply leftward trendline in the last few Presidential cycles.  I don't really understand why, beyond a faster-than-the-national-average pace of racial diversification, but Alaska has gotten much less Republican at an accelerated pace since Sarah Palin was on the national ticket.  There's almost no polling this cycle so it's entirely unclear whether the trend will continue, but the lack of clarity keeps this on my "states to watch" list even if I'm highly doubtful that Harris can erase Trump's 10-point margin from 2020.  Still, the trend is too hard to ignore and I'll predict Harris inches toward a single-digit loss.  Prediction: Trump +9  (Trump +10 in 2020)

Arizona--There appears to be two competing demographic trends in Arizona.  The first is an upscale white population trending toward Democrats.  The second is a downscale Hispanic population trending toward Republicans.  The former group was disproportionately represented in the 2022 midterms, allowing for Katie Hobbs' surprise victory over Kari Lake in the gubernatorial race.  With Presidential turnout in 2024, expect the electorate to look more like the one in 2020, meaning the tie will be broken depending upon which group's growth has eclipsed the other.  My bet is that growth among MAGA-leaning Hispanic men outnumbers growth of Dobbs-averse white women, enough to give Trump a win.  But I won't be a bit surprised if it goes the other way.  Prediction: Trump +2 (Biden +>1)

Florida--The Sunshine State only makes my list because of its "swing state" legacy and the usual array of polls showing it close.  I have no confidence that any pollsters are capable of effectively modeling the dynamic electorate of Florida as the state continues to serve as a sponge for Republican-leaning demographics moving in by the hundreds of thousands, rendering the poll modeling from just one cycle ago obsolete.  Expect to see a lot of terrified pundit faces on November 5 as the Florida returns roll in by 7 p.m. and they're disastrous for Democrats.  Prediction: Trump +11  (Trump +3)

Georgia--The opposite scenario from its neighbor to the south, the Peach State's demographic profile keeps moving in a straight line to the benefit of Democrats.  I underestimated the speed of its transformation in 2020 when I predicted a narrow Trump win, and polling for this cycle tracks almost identically to four years ago at this time.  With that said, Harris has no room for error with upscale whites in suburban Atlanta, a demographic which Biden consolidated but where Stacy Abrams floundered in the 2022 gubernatorial race. Victory for Harris requires that she holds nearly all of the Biden-Kemp voters, and I'm gonna predict she falls just short.  Prediction:  Trump + >1.  (Biden + >1)

Michigan--Polling in the Wolverine State has not been particularly kind to Harris in recent weeks.  I can't remember the last time any poll has showed her leading by more than 3 points with most even closer than that, an unnerving contrast to four years ago when the polling average showed Biden winning by double that.  Media pundits are likely to chalk this up to collapsing support for Democrats among Palestinian-American voters in the Detroit suburbs.  I'm sure that's part of it, but there's more going on here.  My recent column musing how more than half of active UAW members appear to be Trump supporters is another red flag.  But perhaps the biggest issue of all is the rural white-working class vote.  Democrats likely have a long way to fall before they hit bottom among these voters, and there's millions of them in the Midwest generally and Michigan specifically.  Harris is just as likely to lose this race in Bay City as she is in Dearborn.  I'll narrowly lean in the direction of a Harris win, but I'm less confident about it with each passing day.   Prediction: Harris +1  (Biden +3)

Minnesota--Biden had a more decisive win than expected in the Gopher State in 2020, consolidating suburban centrists in a way he didn't do elsewhere in the Upper Midwest.  I expect Harris will hold on to that coalition, crushing Trump everywhere in the orbit of the Twin Cities.  However, she will do no better with the kinds of voters that Tim Walz was selected as running mate to help her with than....Tim Walz himself did in his 2022 gubernatorial re-election bid.  In fact, I expect Harris to do quite a bit worse with them, leading to a nominally tighter statewide margin this year than four years ago.  Prediction: Harris +5  (Biden +7)

Nebraska's 2nd District--Every indication is that metropolitan Omaha is sprinting in the Democrats' direction, with poll after poll showing incumbent GOP Congressman Don Bacon poised to lose.  I'd be surprised if Trump even got close here, in contrast to the further Trump consolidation I expect in Nebraska's other two Congressional districts.  Prediction: Harris +8  (Biden +6)

Nevada--So many states currently appear to be on the knife's edge and the Silver State is yet another.  I suspect the same trend lines are bedeviling Democrats here as they are in Arizona, with Hispanics becoming more amenable to Republicans generally and Trump specifically.  The magnitude of the drift is very hard to predict but as of now, I think Trump will come up just short.  Just as my prediction of Arizona in the opposite direction, I wouldn't be a bit surprised if I was wrong here.  Prediction: Harris +1  (Biden +2)

New Hampshire--The Granite State swung left in 2020 and it seems unlikely they'll swing back this year, at least not far enough to become Trump country.  The MAGA embrace among the contemporary GOP probably nudges New Hampshire out of the party coalition for the foreseeable future, at least in federal races.  Prediction: Harris +8  (Biden +7)

New Mexico--Always on the outside periphery of the battleground states, the Land of Enchantment is regularly taken for granted as safe Democratic.  I suspect it holds for Harris this year, but if the swing to the GOP among Hispanics nationwide materializes, it's bound to disproportionately affect the most Hispanic state in the country.  Prediction:  Harris +7  (Biden +11)

North Carolina--Just as has been the case for the last three Presidential cycles, I'll believe North Carolina is poised to go Democrat when I see it.  And just as has been the case for more than a decade now, I suspect for every vote Democrats pick up from liberal expatriate Yankees in the metro areas, they will lose a Yellow Dog Democrat in the reddening rural areas of the state.  Furthermore, after the horrific consequences of Hurricane Helene, I suspect Tar Heel State voters to be particularly cranky next month and unlikely to reward the incumbent administration.  Prediction: Trump +3  (Trump +1)

Ohio--Only part of the battleground because of its legacy, the Buckeye State is likely to be a black eye for Democrats up and down the ballot again this year.  I suspect the Haitian immigrant situation playing out in their backyard will be especially salient among hundreds of hardscrabble Ohio communities who don't want the Springfield treatment to happen to them.  Prediction: Trump +12  (Trump +8)

Pennsylvania--Four years ago, everything went Biden's way just enough in the state he was born in to eke out a 1-point win.  It looks like it's gonna be an even tougher slog this year and my hunch is the Keystone State's demographic similarities to the Buckeye State will start to reveal themselves with similar electoral trend lines.  After John Fetterman's surprisingly decisive win there two years ago, I'm not filled with confidence about this prediction, but the Democrats really need to pull a lot of Dobbs-critical women out of their hats from the outer periphery of suburban Philadelphia and Pittsburgh to make up for all of the old union guys dying off or flipping MAGA.  Right now, I'm thinking Harris's decision not to pick Josh Shapiro as her running mate looks like a huge mistake.  Prediction: Trump +1  (Biden +1)

Texas--It appeared as though the perfect storm was brewing in the Lone State State four years ago, with enough Trump critics in upscale suburban population centers joining forces with the state's growing minority groups to get Biden within a stone's throw from victory.  The only problem is that the minority groups didn't play along to the degree needed to get Biden as close as the polls suggested.  It was actually quite jarring how much the pendulum swung toward Trump among Texas Hispanics, and since I expect that trend to accelerate four years later, Harris doesn't even seem likely to do as well as Biden.  Abortion rights voters in the suburbs could surprise me here and keep this race close, but I think the border issue runs circles around abortion in Texas this year.  Prediction: Trump +8  (Trump +6)

Wisconsin--I stand by my original instinct for the Badger State this year.  Most people will be looking to margins in Milwaukee, Madison, and the suburbs for tea leaves on who pulls out Wisconsin this year.   I'll be looking to Chippewa Falls, a perfect stand-in for the hundreds of rural, working-class communities in Wisconsin where I suspect Harris support collapses a few points below Biden's already anemic numbers from four years ago. Given that Democrats have so much more room to decline among rural voters in Wisconsin, I'd be a little surprised if Harris is able to pull this one out.  Prediction: Trump +2  (Biden +1)

If my predictions materialize, the Electoral College would break 291-247 in favor of Trump.  And my state-by-state margins also point in the direction of a popular vote photo finish, with the distinct possibility of a Trump popular vote win.  If Trump defies almost all expectations and prevails in the popular vote, I suspect this would be made possible by gains that outpace the national average in three of the four most populous states.  Florida will likely lead the pack in goosing Trump's national numbers with the tea leaves also pointing to New York being primed for a sharp turn toward Trump.  The demographic group where I expect the biggest movement is Hispanic men toward Trump, and if I'm right that will decisively shrink Harris's margins in her home state of California, among many other places.  Beyond that, I'm expecting softer margins for Harris among Jewish voters and at least some shrinkage in numbers among African Americans, led once again by men.  The mainstream analysts' instincts are always to ignore entirely the possibility that rural whites might get even more Republican than they were in previous cycles, but expect to see a continuation of that trend as well, with Trump's margin growing by the millions even among a shrinking population base.

Which groups will be moving toward Harris?  She may do a point or two better among women, but that will be offset by men going at least two points in the other direction.  Beyond that, upscale whites in the suburbs will probably reject Trump even more than they did in 2020.  This group's cultural footprint punches far above the weight of its actual voting muscle, so if you're a candidate poised to make gains primarily or exclusively among them, you might want to prepare for a rough election night.  

Then again, maybe I'll be proven wrong.  Maybe the abortion issue is capable of realigning yet another wave of previously untapped upscale suburban women with numbers that manage to overwhelm all of the other demographic groups that appear poised to shift toward Trump.  It's certainly a possibility, but it seems more likely that growth in the demographic groups where Trump is expected to improve will have math on their side.

Lastly, despite my reputation for pessimism as it relates to Democratic prospects, this is actually the first election of my lifetime where I've predicted a Republican will win the Presidency.  I was too young to make "predictions" about the elections of the 1980s, but beyond that, I predicted Democratic victories in eight consecutive Presidential elections.  It was easy to predict Clinton wins in 1992 and 1996.  In 2000, when all the polls were showing Gore would win Florida, I called a popular vote win for Bush but an Electoral College victory for Gore, the opposite of what actually happened.  In 2004, I was convinced the undecideds would break for Kerry, giving him New Mexico, Iowa, and Ohio and thus the Presidency.  An Obama win was obvious at this time in 2008 and his re-election seemed far more likely than not at this time in 2012.  Almost everybody who wasn't a MAGA true believer got 2016 wrong, and I was among them, thinking Hillary had so many paths to victory that it was a near-impossibility for Trump to prevail despite his momentum.  And of course, terrible polling showed Biden was poised for as big of a victory in 2020 as Obama had in 2008, making that one an easier call the month before the election than it actually should have been given how close it ended up.

I submit these predictions with unusually low confidence and the acknowledgment that I'm at least as likely to eat crow on November 6, 2024, as I was on November 9, 2016.   For that matter, I'm not even sure we're likely to know anything by November 6.  If the electoral vote is anywhere near as close as what I predicted, it'll likely be several more days before we have a definitive winner, and that in itself is another indication that we have some real and intractable problems as a republic.

This will be my official predictions as I've never felt comfortable making predictions two days before the election and pretending that was insightful.  I'll probably give updates the weekend before the election if my opinion has changed in any state, but I'll stand by these numbers barring a seismic development.