You could argue this isn’t a super fair metric as the reason the national average pulls left is that the Large Blue States (New York and California) are solidly blue, while the Large Red States (Texas and Florida) are two of the pinkest ‘safe red’ states alongside Ohio and Iowa. Blue States tend to be more solidly blue than Red States, especially in the big ones. A reverse Canada situation. It also doesn’t account for third parties (which hurt Trump more in 2016 than in 2020, costing him 5 or 6 states in 2016 instead of only 2 or so in 2020).
But the former is unlikely to change this election(I don’t see Florida or Texas tipping, the former is considered a money sink that’s too risky this close to the election to fight for and the latter has very harsh voter laws. Even if they trended left again and Harris got Biden level margins they’d stay red by the skin of their teeth and that’s unlikely) and the latter factor is actually trending in Trump’s favor this time thanks mostly to a weakened and divided Libertarian base. So keep that in mind.
Biden winning by Hillary level popular vote margins in 2020 loses the election, carrying Michigan with Nevada too close to call. A 50/50 popular vote in 2020 flips the other two swing states and puts Nebraska 2 and Minnesota under high pressure.
There was a slight left ward trend overall even accounting for the national swing of 2.4 votes bluer than 201, but it wasn’t by a lot. Adjusting for the nationals and comparing with that, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania trended slightly right, a point and a little over half a point respectively. Nevada swung so right it was bluer in 2016 even without adjusting for anything, with adjusting it’s a 2 and a half point swing right. Arizona and Georgia both swung solidly to the left even accounting for Biden doing better, a point and a half and 3 points respectively. Michigan had a very slight left wing turn adjusted too. North Carolina is the closest, trending on parr with the nation, maybe a few hundred votes more Republican.
Effectively, assuming a tighter election with a smaller popular vote gap than 2020, Nevada is almost certainly going red (it’s at least as red as Georgia or North Carolina if not redder thanks to Harris bumping the black vote). Georgia’s trend is good and so is Harris being bumped to top ticket, but it’s been a Republican spending ground for years and downballots don’t help Harris as well as they did in 2020. Not to mention a potentially nasty third party line up if the judge gets overturned. North Carolina’s tilt is more recent(a lot of the same factors as Georgia, but without the same counterbalance as it wasn’t seen as in need of immediate GOP pushing), but it also was redder to start with by a few points and didn’t swing as hard last time. In a best case Harris scenario where she gets Biden margins these could go blue(Biden was worse with black voters and better with whites, and here this helps), but it’s unlikely as Georgia had it’s momentum aggressively fought and NC is too late.
Neither Biden or Harris are doing fantastic with Hispanics, but they aren’t really doing any worse than 2020. The state leans blue, but it’s a very unstable blue that could be vulnerable to a shock event. (Trump would have won this state in 2020 without third parties). I also think there’s a hard cap on how blue it can go, the rural whites are dug in.
Michigan is trending a bit blue, was already blue-est, very safe for Harris even accounting for a bit worse white performance.
Wisconsin and Pennsylvania are the wildcards as it comes down heavily to how the VP picks help. Tim Walz is probably helping Wisconsin quite a bit, and MAYBE Pennsylvania to a lesser degree? Wisconsin is trending redder in the broad strokes demographic factors, but it’s also got more specific 2024 factors helping it (namely Tim Walz). Pennsylvania gets higher spending and is more diverse, but Walz isn’t as helpful there and Vance isn’t really hated in rural PA compared to national standards.
Things could absolutely change and there are historic things to note (Nevada specifically tends to overpoll Red, Wisconsin specifically tends to overpoll blue, those two have been unusually bad these last two elections), and a few breakthroughs in the South could end this quickly in Harris’s favor if she can court the black vote hard enough. Harris definitely has more fringe ‘best case scenario’ options thanks to that and if the unlikely ones happen that’s that, see 2020 repeat.
BUT this is probably going to be a tight one if the safe states and obvious trenders play out as expected(Georgia, North Carolina, and Nevada Red, Michigan blue). Probably going to come down to Arizona, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.
In the specific config I came up with, Pennsylvania since in this configuration that’s the winning state for either party and the other two don’t matter. Shift something however and that changes. Republicans lose North Carolina? Now they need Pennsylvania AND either Arizona or Wisconsin to win. Lose NC and Maine State 2? Now it has to be Arizona and Wisconsin is a tie(which favors R, but messy).
Or the inverse, Republicans take Arizona alongside the 3 likely ones. They just need 1 rust belt state and they’re clean regardless of Maine, Dem’s need to sweep the belt. Or, if Maine-2 stayed Red AND Nebraska-Omaha lost it’s status and the state went winner take all(which it might), they could tie it up and thus score a House win without a single rust belt state period.
Also any race only decided by one or two electoral votes is vulnerable to faithless electors, the volatile Maine-2 race, and whether or not Nebraska changes it’s EC laws to be WTA. If it comes down to a single nailbiter state with margins of a thousand or less expect Brooks Brothers style favoring of whichever party controls the state(slight edge to Republicans if the state is split).
You could argue this isn’t a super fair metric as the reason the national average pulls left is that the Large Blue States (New York and California) are solidly blue, while the Large Red States (Texas and Florida) are two of the pinkest ‘safe red’ states alongside Ohio and Iowa. Blue States tend to be more solidly blue than Red States, especially in the big ones. A reverse Canada situation. It also doesn’t account for third parties (which hurt Trump more in 2016 than in 2020, costing him 5 or 6 states in 2016 instead of only 2 or so in 2020).
But the former is unlikely to change this election(I don’t see Florida or Texas tipping, the former is considered a money sink that’s too risky this close to the election to fight for and the latter has very harsh voter laws. Even if they trended left again and Harris got Biden level margins they’d stay red by the skin of their teeth and that’s unlikely) and the latter factor is actually trending in Trump’s favor this time thanks mostly to a weakened and divided Libertarian base. So keep that in mind.
Biden winning by Hillary level popular vote margins in 2020 loses the election, carrying Michigan with Nevada too close to call. A 50/50 popular vote in 2020 flips the other two swing states and puts Nebraska 2 and Minnesota under high pressure.
There was a slight left ward trend overall even accounting for the national swing of 2.4 votes bluer than 201, but it wasn’t by a lot. Adjusting for the nationals and comparing with that, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania trended slightly right, a point and a little over half a point respectively. Nevada swung so right it was bluer in 2016 even without adjusting for anything, with adjusting it’s a 2 and a half point swing right. Arizona and Georgia both swung solidly to the left even accounting for Biden doing better, a point and a half and 3 points respectively. Michigan had a very slight left wing turn adjusted too. North Carolina is the closest, trending on parr with the nation, maybe a few hundred votes more Republican.
Effectively, assuming a tighter election with a smaller popular vote gap than 2020, Nevada is almost certainly going red (it’s at least as red as Georgia or North Carolina if not redder thanks to Harris bumping the black vote). Georgia’s trend is good and so is Harris being bumped to top ticket, but it’s been a Republican spending ground for years and downballots don’t help Harris as well as they did in 2020. Not to mention a potentially nasty third party line up if the judge gets overturned. North Carolina’s tilt is more recent(a lot of the same factors as Georgia, but without the same counterbalance as it wasn’t seen as in need of immediate GOP pushing), but it also was redder to start with by a few points and didn’t swing as hard last time. In a best case Harris scenario where she gets Biden margins these could go blue(Biden was worse with black voters and better with whites, and here this helps), but it’s unlikely as Georgia had it’s momentum aggressively fought and NC is too late.
Neither Biden or Harris are doing fantastic with Hispanics, but they aren’t really doing any worse than 2020. The state leans blue, but it’s a very unstable blue that could be vulnerable to a shock event. (Trump would have won this state in 2020 without third parties). I also think there’s a hard cap on how blue it can go, the rural whites are dug in.
Michigan is trending a bit blue, was already blue-est, very safe for Harris even accounting for a bit worse white performance.
Wisconsin and Pennsylvania are the wildcards as it comes down heavily to how the VP picks help. Tim Walz is probably helping Wisconsin quite a bit, and MAYBE Pennsylvania to a lesser degree? Wisconsin is trending redder in the broad strokes demographic factors, but it’s also got more specific 2024 factors helping it (namely Tim Walz). Pennsylvania gets higher spending and is more diverse, but Walz isn’t as helpful there and Vance isn’t really hated in rural PA compared to national standards.
Things could absolutely change and there are historic things to note (Nevada specifically tends to overpoll Red, Wisconsin specifically tends to overpoll blue, those two have been unusually bad these last two elections), and a few breakthroughs in the South could end this quickly in Harris’s favor if she can court the black vote hard enough. Harris definitely has more fringe ‘best case scenario’ options thanks to that and if the unlikely ones happen that’s that, see 2020 repeat. BUT this is probably going to be a tight one if the safe states and obvious trenders play out as expected(Georgia, North Carolina, and Nevada Red, Michigan blue). Probably going to come down to Arizona, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.
In the specific config I came up with, Pennsylvania since in this configuration that’s the winning state for either party and the other two don’t matter. Shift something however and that changes. Republicans lose North Carolina? Now they need Pennsylvania AND either Arizona or Wisconsin to win. Lose NC and Maine State 2? Now it has to be Arizona and Wisconsin is a tie(which favors R, but messy).
Or the inverse, Republicans take Arizona alongside the 3 likely ones. They just need 1 rust belt state and they’re clean regardless of Maine, Dem’s need to sweep the belt. Or, if Maine-2 stayed Red AND Nebraska-Omaha lost it’s status and the state went winner take all(which it might), they could tie it up and thus score a House win without a single rust belt state period.
Also any race only decided by one or two electoral votes is vulnerable to faithless electors, the volatile Maine-2 race, and whether or not Nebraska changes it’s EC laws to be WTA. If it comes down to a single nailbiter state with margins of a thousand or less expect Brooks Brothers style favoring of whichever party controls the state(slight edge to Republicans if the state is split).