Four States May Decide the Election Between Trump and Harris

This year has been filled with endless twists and turns, so it would not be surprising at all if the final five weeks of the election brought some new, unseen development between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris (like a regional war Israel is instigating in the Middle East that would likely shift the dynamics of the race to one that favored Trump). However, we are fairly late in this cycle, the only event left on the calendar is the Vice Presidential Debate–which history says does not matter one iota for people not named Sarah Palin–and in previous elections we had a pretty decent idea of the general direction of the race at this point.

From where polling stands today, it looks like four states will likely decide the next president.

Pennsylvania

At the beginning of the month, I noted that Trump’s ad buys reserved between then and Election Day told a pretty stark story about how he sees the election. As far as Republican spending is concerned, Pennsylvania is the only state that truly matters. Over half of the GOP’s reservations in presidential battlegrounds were in the one worth the most electoral votes, and looking at the map with the battleground states unallocated, it’s not difficult to see why.

Polling in Wisconsin and Michigan has been moving towards Kamala Harris lately, with her up 2.6 and 2.8 percent respectively, in VoteHub’s polling averages. Assuming anything in 2024 is dangerous, but based on GOP spending, Trump doesn’t seem to think those two states were vital to his path, as reservations in Michigan and Wisconsin combined comprised just fourteen percent of Pennsylvania’s.

If you give Harris both Michigan and Wisconsin, as well as Nebraska’s portal to hell that makes ties possible where GOP spending was $0 and a recent poll has her up 15 points, she wins the election with Pennsylvania. It doesn’t matter what happens in any of the states below should the Democrats retain the Midwest firewall, she would be at 270 on the button with what is looking like one of the likelier outcomes right now.

However, should Trump erase her 1.5 percent lead in Pennsylvania’s VoteHub polling average and flip it red, some different paths for Trump and Harris open up.

Nevada

Nevada’s six electoral votes may seem minor at first, but in an election this close, those six EVs have the potential to determine the president. Trump is extending his lead in Arizona the way Harris’s is growing in Michigan and Wisconsin, so if you give him those eleven EVs in a scenario where he flips Pennsylvania as well as Maine’s second district he has won twice, this election comes down to whoever can win two of the three remaining states. Nevada is razor-thin, as VoteHub has its polling average at a 0.8 percent lead for Harris, while FiveThirtyEight puts it at a 0.5 percent lead. If Pennsylvania falls, then Nevada could become the most important state in the election.

Georgia

I hemmed and hawed over putting this one in play because my gut says that Georgia is going red, but ultimately, it is difficult to not put 2020’s most surprising blue state on this list when VoteHub has Trump’s lead at 1.3 percent, which is less than Kamala’s 1.5 percent lead in Pennsylvania. Plus, Republican spending indicates they believe it is a winnable competitive state, as Georgia and Pennsylvania comprised over eighty percent of GOP ad reservations at the beginning of the month.

Trump’s plan clearly is to try to flip Pennsylvania, and then win two of the remaining three states up for grabs, and Georgia is his best chance to get one on the board.

North Carolina

Which brings us to the surprising potential spoiler of 2024. A Democrat has only won this state once since 1976, when Barack Obama’s historic once-in-a-generation coalition swept across the country in 2008, capturing states like Indiana and North Carolina, the latter of which he won by 0.3 percent. Obama lost it by two percent in 2012, then Hillary Clinton was defeated by 3.6 percent in 2016, and Joe Biden produced the second-best Democratic performance in the Tar Heel state since 1976, losing by just 1.3 percent in 2020.

Kamala Harris is currently down by 0.5 percent in North Carolina per both VoteHub and FiveThirtyEight‘s averages. A lot of people have wondered why North Carolina is so close this year, especially when Georgia polling has moved back to the right, but porn forum posting enthusiast Mark Robinson gave everyone a pretty good explanation for why last week when his “I’m a black NAZI!” scandal broke out into the open.

Nude Africa may wind up being the most consequential website of the 2024 election, because without it, Trump could likely focus his entire attention on trying to flip Pennsylvania and win. Instead, he is being dragged down by one of the worst candidates America has ever seen, and he is being forced to defend a state that history suggests does not need much defending.

Who Is the Favorite?

Thanks to her leads in Pennsylvania and Nevada, VoteHub estimates the current Electoral College average to be Harris’s 276 to Trump’s 262. FiveThirtyEight says that Harris wins 55 times out of 100 simulations to Trump’s 45, and Nate Silver’s model also paints the same picture of a slight lead for Kamala Harris.

And NC also within three-tenths of a point, notably.

The winning conditions for Harris involving those 5 states are as follows:

• Win PA, WI and MI (and NE2)
• Lose PA, but win NC *and* NV
• Lose MI, but win NC
• Lose WI, but win NC

These are the easiest paths for Harris.

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) September 24, 2024

All these estimates are influenced by good new polling for Harris since Trump’s disastrous debate, as Nate Cohn of the New York Times noted.

Over the last week, more than a dozen high-quality polls were released in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin — and nearly every one showed Harris tied or ahead. Her best news came in Pennsylvania, the largest and most important battleground state. There, eight pollsters we label “select,” meaning higher quality, found Harris ahead, on average, by 2.5 points.

While there is unambiguously good news for Harris in the recent polling data, and the dynamics of her appealing more to white people while losing ground with nonwhite people benefit her in the Midwest, it does create a pretty big tail risk for her south of Big Ten country. The Democrats are shedding younger Black voters and a lot of Hispanic voters, which explains how Arizona and Georgia are drifting away from the 2020 coalition. This puts Nevada and North Carolina at risk too, and in that scenario where all four go to Trump, Harris has one path to the presidency: Pennsylvania, where she would win 270-268.

Additionally, Gallup notes that the 2024 election environment is favorable to the Republican Party. This chart should send shivers down the spine of every Democratic campaign official.

The Harris Campaign’s inability to speak in too much detail about what she wants to do as the most powerful person in the world has hurt her in the polls, and is likely part of why she is announcing a suite of new policies this week. When the shift from Joe Biden to Harris was made, it seemed as if she had the opportunity to recreate and even build on his 2020 map. Instead, she’s running a defensive campaign that looks similar to what Biden was trying to do earlier this year with his Hail Mary to the Midwest firewall, and the map has narrowed from 2020.

Pennsylvania really is the whole ballgame. If Harris wins it, a huge polling miss in an assumed blue state would be required for Trump to win the election. She also has received a gift from the probabilistic gods in the form of Mark Robinson. Should she lose Pennsylvania, she has insurance–unlike Trump who must win it–and she could still realistically cobble together North Carolina and Nevada to win 273-265. Harris is clearly the favorite as the election currently stands, but as all the polling models and averages prove, she is not a very large one. This map will likely not look like 2020, and should current polls miss Pennsylvania, Trump has a very good chance of winning.