Sosnick served as a senior adviser to President Bill Clinton from 1994 to 2000 and has advised more than 50 governors and senators.
August 15, 2024
With Kamala Harris now the leading candidate, enthusiasm and confidence within the Democratic Party feels stronger than at any point I’ve seen since Barack Obama ran for president in 2008. And it’s not just a mood: Since I last analyzed the electoral maps on July 12, nine days before Joe Biden dropped out of the race, the path to Electoral College victory has been completely remade for Democrats — and for Donald Trump.
Democrats are not only returning home to support their candidate, they are also more enthusiastic about the election than their Republican counterparts, and Harris is rapidly gaining support among non-white and younger voters.
Now we are back to the same electoral map that existed before Biden’s summer polling collapse, with the winner in November once again coming down to seven battleground states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Seven battleground states that will likely determine the outcome of the 2024 presidential election.
Current polls are changing the face of the race. While Biden trailed Trump in all seven battleground states last month, the latest New York Times/Siena College Poll has Harris leading Trump by 4 points in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Other polls have Harris statistically closer in Georgia and Arizona.
These polls also reveal one of Trump’s biggest obstacles to winning the election: A majority of Americans have never supported him as president or as a candidate for public office. In the Times/Siena poll, Trump received just 46 percent in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. And with the race no longer pitting unpopular candidates against each other, support for third-party candidates has fallen, making it much harder for Trump to win.
But Republicans have a structural advantage in the Electoral College voting system, giving Trump at least one advantage over a gaining Harris.
Republicans have lost the popular vote in seven of the last eight presidential elections but won the White House in three of them. In 2016, Trump narrowly won the Electoral College in battleground states like Wisconsin, but Hillary Clinton swept past him in the most populous states like California. A reapportionment of electoral votes based on the latest census has further strengthened the Republican advantage.
Given these structural advantages, Georgia and its 16 electoral votes are shaping up to be a crucial state that Trump cannot afford to lose. If Harris could win Georgia (and Trump seems to be trying to help her by inexplicably attacking the popular incumbent Republican governor and his wife), she would win 242 electoral votes, just 28 short of the 270 needed to win.
Trump may not understand the political impact of losing Georgia, but his advisers seem to: In the two weeks since Harris became the Democratic nominee, the Trump campaign and its largest allied super PAC have spent four times as much on advertising in the state as they did for the rest of 2024 combined. And as of this week, about $24 million of the Trump campaign’s $37 million national ad buy has been spent in Georgia.
Pennsylvania is increasingly becoming another key battleground state, and both parties know it: More than $211 million in paid media has been bought in Pennsylvania so far between March 6 and Election Day, more than double the amount of any other state, according to AdImpact.
Given the state’s size and past support for Democratic candidates, a loss in Pennsylvania could be as damaging to her candidacy as a loss in Georgia would be to Trump’s chances of victory.
That makes Georgia and Pennsylvania the two most important states in determining whether one candidate can establish a decisive path to winning the 270 electoral votes.
Harris is expected to receive 226 electoral votes to Trump’s 219, with 93 remaining votes to be contested, but unlike Biden last month, Harris has multiple paths to securing the 270 electoral votes.
The first path for Harris will be to win Pennsylvania, a state that Biden won by more than 80,000 votes in 2020 and has voted for the Democratic candidate in seven of the past eight presidential elections.
Assuming Harris wins Pennsylvania, she would have 245 electoral votes, giving her six paths to 270.
Scenario 1
So all Harris needs is Michigan and Wisconsin (assuming she wins Nebraska’s 2nd district)…
Scenario 2
… or Wisconsin and Georgia…
Scenario 3
…or Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada…
Scenario 4
… or Michigan and Arizona…
Scenario 5
… or Michigan and Georgia…
Scenario 6
…Or Georgia and Arizona.
Harris’ second path doesn’t require her to win Pennsylvania, but instead to win Wisconsin, Michigan and Georgia.
Scenario 1
…Arizona…
Scenario 2
…or Nevada.
Based on past elections, Trump would start with 219 electoral votes and Harris with 226, giving her 93 votes up for grabs.
If Trump cannot win North Carolina, a state that generally favors Republican presidential candidates, it is unclear whether he can win the election.
That would give Trump 235 electoral votes, with multiple paths to 270.
The first path is to win Georgia, a state that Trump lost by fewer than 12,000 votes in 2020. Prior to that, Republicans had won Georgia in every election since 1992.
If Trump wins North Carolina and Georgia, his electoral base will be 251 votes.
Scenario 1
So all Trump needs is Pennsylvania…
Scenario 2
… or Michigan and Nevada…
Scenario 3
… or Michigan and Arizona…
Scenario 4
… or Arizona and Wisconsin…
The second, and more difficult, path for Trump is if he wins North Carolina but loses Georgia, which would leave him with just 235 electoral votes and require him to win three of the six remaining battleground states.
Scenario 1
Like Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin…
Scenario 2
…or Arizona, Nevada, or Pennsylvania.
Towards November
Harris is clearly riding high heading into the Democratic National Convention, but the real test is yet to come: At some point, she will need to show she can perform under pressure to win over undecided voters, as well as less-committed moderates and independents.
As tumultuous as this election has been, certain political rules still apply to presidential elections: History has repeatedly shown that the candidate who wins is usually the one who can best define who they are, who they’re up against, and what their campaign objectives are.
Trump saw the election as a referendum on his own presidential ability compared to Biden – that he is a strong leader and Biden a weak one.
Harris has spent the past three weeks setting the terms of her campaign as a choice between change and regression — a positive view of the future compared to a dystopian view of the present accompanied by a desire to go back to the past.
But while Harris’ approval ratings have risen significantly since she announced her candidacy, the increase has been slow, making the Democratic convention a key opportunity for her to strike a deal with key swing voters.
Meanwhile, Trump is fully defined in the minds of most voters, choosing instead to focus on pandering to his MAGA base even as he alienates key swing voters who could determine the outcome of the election. In the final hour of his convention speech, and every day since, Trump has used words and actions to remind the nation why he left office in 2020.
Trump increasingly looks like a struggling rock star with only the hits to play to his dwindling fan base, and if he loses in November he will be the one-hit wonder who has led the Republican Party to four straight presidential and midterm losses.
Doug Sosnick served as senior advisor to President Bill Clinton from 1994 to 2000 and has advised more than 50 governors and senators.