The election results in some states are slow in coming, making follow up reports necessary to properly capture the 2024 final election results and trends.
Heading into the election, it appeared that either party still had the opportunity to score a legislative trifecta. That is winning the Presidency, the Senate, and the House. At this point, it appears the Republicans may have achieved such a goal. Former President Donald Trump has been projected the winner of the 2024 presidential contest by retaining all 25 states that voted for him in both 2016 and 2020, along with Maine’s 2nd Congressional District. He held his weakest state, North Carolina, and then converted Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin to, at this writing, record 277 electoral votes, or seven more than necessary to clinch the national election. Still outstanding are Arizona, Michigan, and Nevada, and Trump leads in each. The Republicans are on the threshold of major gains in the Senate. As predicted the open West Virginia seat was first to fall to the GOP in the person of Gov. Jim Justice. Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown (D) then went down to defeat at the hands of Republican businessman Bernie Moreno. Retired Navy SEAL Tim Sheehy (R) then defeated Sen. Jon Tester (D) in Montana. The races in Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin remain uncalled. Of this group, Pennsylvania appears the GOP’s best chance of winning another seat. All the others will likely trend toward the Democratic candidate. In Arizona, Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Phoenix) appears poised to defeat Republican Kari Lake and return retiring Independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema’s seat to the Democratic column. In another competitive race, New Mexico Sen. Martin Heinrich (D) successfully won a third term, and Maryland’s Angela Alsobrooks (D) defeated former Gov. Larry Hogan (R) to keep the open Free State Senate seat in the Democratic column. The House majority remains undecided, but Republicans appear to stand a good chance of hanging onto their slim majority. It could be several weeks before we see final totals in the competitive California races that feature four Republicans who sit in Democratic seat fighting for survival. Republican Scott Baugh has a slight lead in the open Orange County district that Rep. Katie Porter (D-Irvine) risked to run unsuccessfully for the Senate. The Alaska seat could well flip to the Republicans in the person of Nick Begich, III defeating at-large Rep. Mary Peltola (D-Bethel). The Top Four Ranked Choice Voting system appears headed for elimination due to the passage of a repeal ballot proposition. Therefore, this could be the last Alaska race that sees an election going to the Ranked Choice Voting round. Once again, tracking early voting proved to be an excellent predictor of what would happen in the full vote. In virtually every state, Republican performance improved over the party’s standing in the 2020 presidential election and the 2022 midterm. This was a preliminary clue that Republicans were headed for a strong election night.
Perhaps the biggest clue from early voting was the growing Republican early vote strength in rural counties and communities throughout the nation, while the urban areas were underperforming for the Democrats. The suburbs were slightly above previous performance, which marginally helped the Democrats. Overall, early voting was down compared to the 2020 presidential election, which is not surprising. The TargetEarly/TargetSmart organization tracks early voting, and their previous analyses have proven accurate. It appears that their 2024 projections will follow that same pattern. In 2020, we will remember, the courts instituted virtual universal mail voting on an emergency basis because of Covid. Since the courts cannot arbitrarily change state election law on a permanent basis, the laws returned to pre-2020 status unless the particular state had enacted new legislation since that particular election. In 2020, over 103 million people voted early. In 2024, the total will be approximately 80 million. Overall turnout is likely to be less than the record we saw set in 2020, which featured almost 158 million people voting. In the 2024 election, it is likely we will see a total closer to 150 million, which is still historically very high. At this writing, Mr. Trump has 277 electoral votes but could go as high as 312 if his leads in Alaska, Arizona, Michigan and Nevada hold. In any event, the Trump victory marks the second time in US history that a President who was defeated for re-election returned four years later to recapture the White House. In 1892, President Grover Cleveland, who lost his re-election in 1888, returned to win a second non-consecutive term. Now, Mr. Trump repeats the feat.
The former President cobbled together a coalition of rural voters, working class whites, evangelicals and practicing Catholics, and non-college degreed individuals along with performing better with African American men and Hispanics to win his second presidential term. When the final numbers become known, it is likely Mr. Trump finished in the low double digits within the black communities, while likely surpassing the 40% mark among Hispanics. Both minority percentages are improvements over previous Republican presidential nominees’ histories. As has been his history, Mr. Trump performed better than predicted in the battleground states and posted his best numbers of his three presidential runs in most states. The former President exceeded the bare minimum needed to win again, and he reconverted at least three states, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, that he won in 2016 but lost in 2020. Arizona and Michigan may follow this pattern, while Nevada would be a conversion from the group of states that twice voted for the Democratic nominee against him. Perhaps most surprising of all the statistics, Mr. Trump may be in position to carry the popular vote. At this writing, he stands at approximately 51% of the national popular vote as compared to Ms. Harris 47.4 percent, a margin of approximately six million votes. This could change when the western states, such as the Pacific Coast states of California, Oregon, and Washington finish counting. Considering Mr. Trump is improving his standing in those states, he may still hang onto the national popular vote lead once all counting concludes, but with a reduced margin. As expected, Republicans did wrest the Senate majority away from the Democrats and it appears the total could potentially hit 54 seats, but more likely 52 and possibly 53.
The flips from Democrat to Republican included Montana, Ohio, and West Virginia. The Michigan and Nevada races remain too close to call, while Republican David McCormick maintains a small lead over Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey, Jr. Democrats look to reclaim the Arizona seat that Kyrsten Sinema won in 2018 as a member of the party before she bolted for Independent status. Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Phoenix) appears to hold a lead that will stand when counting is complete. In Maryland, Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks will hold retiring Sen. Ben Cardin’s (D) open seat for the Democrats. Ms. Alsobrooks defeated former Gov. Larry Hogan (R) with a 52-45% margin. The three Republican incumbents in competitive races all won decisively. In Florida, Sen. Rick Scott scored a 56-43% win. Nebraska Sen. Deb Fischer, in a tough race not with a Democratic opponent but an Independent, recorded a 54-46% come-from-behind win after trailing early on election night. Texas Senator Ted Cruz fought off a tough challenge from Rep. Colin Allred (D-Dallas) to notch a decisive 53-44% victory. The key to the Republicans winning their new majority was to secure all eleven in-cycle Senate seats, a goal that was achieved. While early in the evening it appeared the Democrats would claim a small majority in the US House, it now looks as if the Republicans will hold their slim advantage.
More will be known when more complete results are known and likely some days if not weeks from now when the western states such as Alaska, Arizona, California, Oregon, and Washington finish their laborious counting procedures. Large numbers of mail ballots whose signatures must be verified, and all these states with the exception of Oregon that allow ballots to come in after the election, will largely provide the final margin once the numbers are released much closer to each state’s certification deadline. At this writing, it appears the two sides may trade approximately eight seats that each party currently holds. Republicans gaining three seats in North Carolina due to 2023 redistricting goes a long way toward helping the GOP retain majority status. Once again, we see huge percentages of incumbents from both parties successfully winning another term. Some who appeared to be on the brink of losing, such as veteran Reps. Don Bacon (R-NE) and Marcy Kaptur (D-OH), look to have held on with close victory margins. Incumbents who appear to have lost are: Rep. Marc Molinaro (R-NY) Rep. Brandon Williams (R-NY) Rep. Susan Wild (D-PA) Rep. Matt Cartwright (D-PA) Several other incumbents are in close races while a few open seats that are still too close to call remain suspended. Eight California contests, two Arizona battles, one campaign in Nevada and another in Oregon, and the at-large seat in Alaska are all too close to call. Each will have a major effect upon which party will control. Iowa Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-LeClaire), who won her seat in 2020 with just a six seat edge, is stranded in another nail biter. With 98% of the vote tabulated, Ms. Miller-Meeks leads with only a 413 vote spread. Looking at all the numbers and trends suggest that the Republicans will maintain control with potentially a similar sized majority to the current five-seat split. Eleven gubernatorial races were decided last night. The most competitive, that in the open New Hampshire race, went to Republican former US Senator Kelly Ayotte, who returned to elective politics after her close re-election loss in 2016.
As predicted, North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein (D) easily won the open North Carolina Governor’s race when Republican Lt. Governor Mark Robinson’s campaign imploded. In other open races, also as expected, Sen. Mike Braun (R) won the Indiana Governorship and Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson (D) will succeed retiring Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee. New Castle County Executive Matt Meyer (D) held the open Governor’s seat in Delaware, and Lt. Gov. Mike Kehoe (R) will replace term-limited Missouri Gov. Mike Parson (R). Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-Bismarck) easily won in North Dakota, and West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey (R) will succeed term-limited Gov. Jim Justice (R) when the latter man assumes the US Senate seat he won last night. Govs. Greg Gianforte (R-MT), Spencer Cox (R-UT), and Phil Scott (R-VT) were all easily re-elected. Generally, the pollsters are taking hits for missing the national outcome, but once again their polls were generally correct. While they did predict the winner in most campaigns, the miss came on the outcome margin.
Once again, as he did in 2016 and 2020, Donald Trump overperformed within the electorate based upon the projected polling data. Therefore, the pollsters seemed to cumulatively miss the margin of most races. Possibly a de-emphasis of voter history in deference to polling methodology may be the reason. Certainly, the national popular vote was a cumulative miss as almost all polls found Ms. Harris holding the lead. Several, however, did show Trump potentially winning the national vote at the end, but with a much closer margin than reality. In the coming days, we will see examples and comparisons as to how the pollsters fared based upon the actual results and where they were right and wrong. Closings: Early Voting Just About Final: The TargetEarly/TargetSmart data organization is posting near final early vote totals now that every state has concluded its process. According to these results, which will likely change a bit upward, over 72 million people have voted early. This compares to more than 1.1 million early votes in 2020. Remember, however, because of the Covid emergency rulings, we had almost universal early mail voting four years ago.
At this point, according to the TargetEarly model, which they say is only a prospective outlook and not to be taken as wholly accurate, Republicans are up almost three percentage points over their 2020 performance and six points over 2022. Conversely, Democrats are down a point and one-half when compared to 2020 and down over five points when matched with their 2022 early vote performance. Overall, about two million more Democrats than Republicans have voted early this year. In 2020, that Democratic advantage number was over seven million. Iowa: Two More Suggest Outlier: The Des Moines Register/Mediacom Poll (10/28-31; 808 IA likely voters; live interview), that found Kamala Harris taking a 47-44% lead over Donald Trump and has attracted great national attention, is now challenged by two other pollsters.
We previously covered that Emerson College released their Iowa survey finding a much different result, and one that is more in line with Iowa vote history. The Emerson survey (11/1-2; 800 IA likely voters; multiple sampling techniques) sees Mr. Trump holding a nine point lead, 54-45%. In 2016, Trump carried the state 51-42%, and 53-45% in 2020. Two more pollsters now echo Emerson. Insider Advantage (11/2-3; 800 IA likely voters) sees a six point Trump lead, 52-46%. SoCal Strategies (11/2-3; 435 IA likely voters) posts Trump to an eight point advantage, 52-44%. Ohio: Upset Brewing: No less than four political pollsters find Republican businessman Bernie Moreno topping Sen. Sherrod Brown (D) in final Ohio US Senate polling. Four different pollsters find Moreno leading: the Trafalgar Group +1; AtlasIntel +3; Emerson College +4; and Morning Consult +1. All of the surveys were conducted during the October 23 through November 4 period, with Trafalgar and AtlasIntel sampling only in November.
With former President Trump leading all closing Ohio polls from nine to 11 percentage points, it will be a difficult climb for Sen. Brown to reverse the closing trends. According to the TargetEarly/TargetSmart data organization’s modeled report, which they caution may not be wholly accurate, Republican turnout is almost five percentage points better than the 2020 presidential contest, while Democrats are up only one point. Overall, approximately 225,000 more Republicans than Democrats have cast ballots in this year’s Ohio early vote process. |
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