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Electoral Math, Take Two (Now Without Typos!) [1]

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Date: 2024-08-13  

So yesterday morning, I posted a diary on electoral math, and within minutes, commenters had pointed out a couple of typos (one of many reasons I love the DK community!). One error was transposing the electoral votes for AZ and WI, which was easily fixed. The other error could have been a minor typo, OR it could have indicated a major mathematical error (ruh roh!). Checking my work would have taken too long (especially since I was actually busy at my work-from-home gig for a change), so rather than leave up a diary with potentially incorrect information, I self-redacted it.

Upon further review, the math is correct, the typo was relatively minor (although as a longtime editor, I’m appalled that I let it get through), so I’m posting the diary anew, which required rewriting it from scratch and checking it a million freaking times before I post.

First off, know that I won’t be discussing polls or poll aggregators—there has been too much change and churn in the election since Harris became the candidate, and the polls are still catching up to reality, or at least trying to. Also, I won’t be discussing the likelihood of this state or that state going red or going blue. I don’t have that math, and I don’t know that anyone has it (yet), and regardless, it’s not the point. This is merely a straightforward mathematical exercise about the possible combinations of the swing states that are up for grabs, how many combinations lead to victory for Harris, and how many for Trump.

and like Michael C, I’m keeping my personal opinions out of it

The map above shows the election results for 2020. Since then, there have been two changes as a result of the 2020 census:

several states were assigned new numbers of electoral votes (EV’s), including s w ing states PA, NC, and MI

s ing states NE-02 w a s redistricted, taking it from a Dem-leaning district to being rated as ‘EVEN’ by the Cook PVI (which isn’t a perfect metric, but is one of the better one s out there)

The upshot of these changes is that there are 3 more EV’s in the “safe” column for the R’s than there were in 2020. However, Dems still have a 6-EV advantage in “safe” states, 225 — 219, as shown in the map below. This leaves 94 EV’s up for grabs.

for purposes of this diary, I have allocated non-swing states to the party that won them in 2020; I have also put NE-02 in the “swing” category

For reference, and because the images can be hard to read, here is a table showing the seven swing states (same seven as in 2020), along with their current EV’s and the margins from 2020. I did not include NE-02 in this table, since it only has 1 EV and after redistricting, the 2020 info no longer applies.

state ev’s 2020 margin PA 19 D+1.16% GA 16 D+0.24% NC 16 R+1.35% MI 15 D+2.78% AZ 11 D+0.31% W I 10 D+0.63% NV 6 D+2.39%

It will be necessary for a candidate to win at least three swing states to win the election, although it will be difficult to do so with only three. Assuming that the non-swing states fall like they did last time, Harris will need 45 additional EV’s to win the election. There are 35 combinations of winning three swing states possible, 9 of which deliver victory for Harris; of these, 8 require winning PA. The combinations are:

PA/GA/NC; PA/GA/MI; PA/GA/AZ

PA/GA/WI; PA/NC/MI; PA/NC/AZ

PA/NC/WI; PA/MI/AZ; GA/NC/MI

Last combination bolded because no PA. Harris can also win if she takes PA/MI/WI and NE-02.

Using the same assumption about non-swing states as above, Trump will need 51 additional EV’s to win the election. There is only one combination of three states that wins the election for Trump: PA/GA/NC—the three swing states with the largest numbers of EV’s. Trump can also win if he gets MI instead of either GA or NC, and also gets NE-02.

It is therefore more likely (though not guaranteed) that the next president will have to win four of the seven swing states. Again, there are 35 possible combinations of four swing states. Of these, 32(!) deliver victory for Harris, 24 of them requiring victory in PA (obviously, too many to list). For Trump, only 24 of the 35 possible combinations put him over the top, 18 of which require winning PA. Additionally, there are 2 combinations that get Trump the victory if he also wins NE-02.

I think we can all see just how critical winning PA will be in November. Either candidate could win without it, but in losing PA, a lot of paths get shut down, and the electoral math gets much harder to overcome. If Harris wins PA plus any 3 other swing states, she wins the election; for Trump, it’s PA and any 4 other swing states.

If either candidate wins any 5 swing states, with or without NE-02, they win the election.

As for an actual tie, there are only a few ways it can happen, and the only one that is truly likely (yeah, I know what I said about likelihood above) is Harris winning only PA/MI/WI, without NE-02. As we all know, an electoral tie throws the election to the House of Representatives, where it is state delegations that vote, not actual Representatives. In that case, the election almost certainly goes to Trump (I have a hard time imagining a scenario involving an electoral tie that somehow nets Dems a majority of state delegations in the House). So while NE-02 isn’t nearly as critical as PA, winning it does shut down a few paths for one’s opponent.

Personally, I hope that by the time the Democratic convention is over, Harris will be pulling away to the point that this diary is as outdated as a covered wagon carrying crates of whalebone corsets. Between yesterday’s posting and this one, in fact, polling was released that—if accurate—shows Harris’s lead increasing in some swing states (disclaimer: I don’t trust most individual polls, but the trends are generally valid). In the meantime, however, I hope that this diary both informs, and provides a bit of optimism.

Thanks for reading!

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/8/13/2262682/-Electoral-Math-Take-Two-Now-Without-Typos?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web

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