| Dear Readers: This is the last edition of the Crystal Ball for 2024. We will see you in the new year. Happy Holidays.
With election results now finalized, we are taking a look at how the states voted for president relative to the nation, and how their positioning has changed over the last quarter century. This is an updated version of a story we last ran in December 2020—a bit of the explanatory language from that piece is reproduced below. — The Editors |
KEY POINTS FROM THIS ARTICLE
— Donald Trump improved his margin in every single state from 2020 to 2024.
— However, the change in margin was smaller than the national change in most states, as Trump’s biggest overperformances compared to 2020 generally came in the largest states.
— A longer-term look at how the states vote relative to the nation reveals some intriguing patterns.
— Once-competitive states like Florida, Iowa, and Ohio are now solidly in the Republican camp, while Colorado and Virginia ran the gamut from leaning Republican to now leaning Democratic.
— Of the key 2024 swing states, Georgia and North Carolina stand out as trending purple, although they continue to be positioned right of the nation (although only very slightly in the case of Georgia).
— Arizona and Nevada, meanwhile, provide the best argument against the idea that Kamala Harris overperformed in the swing states, as both battleground states mirrored the national swing toward Trump.
A quarter-century of state-level voting patterns
In winning the presidency this year, Donald Trump did something unusual. As part of running 6 points ahead of his 2-party national popular vote margin from 2020, Trump improved his margin in every single state this year by at least some amount. The last time a party nominee improved his party’s margin in every single state from one presidential election to the next was Jimmy Carter back in 1976 (although several others have come close since then). In 1976, Carter won the popular vote by 2 points after George McGovern had lost it by 23 points to Richard Nixon in in 1972, so that was a 25-point swing nationally—it makes sense that every state swung toward the Democrats in 1976 given the huge national swing. Trump improved his margin in every state despite the overall national swing being much smaller.
Table 1 shows the 2-party presidential swing in margin from 2020 to 2024 in every state, categorized by how much better Trump did in 2024 compared to 2020. As Table 1 shows, many more states had a smaller swing than the nation did overall (6.0 points), but the states where the swing was clearly larger includes the 4 most populous states (California, Texas, Florida, and New York). This leads to a curious situation: Despite every state swinging toward Trump in terms of the actual results, 38 states plus the District of Columbia swung less toward Trump than the nation did, so all of those states actually became slightly less Republican relative to the nation in 2024. This helps explain why a Republican bias in the Electoral College disappeared in 2024: The decisive state in the Electoral College, Pennsylvania, gave Trump a 1.7-point margin, very similar to his national margin of 1.5 points. This comes after Wisconsin, the state that put Joe Biden over 270 electoral votes in 2020, voted nearly 4 points to the right of the nation that year.
Table 1: Change in Trump 2-party margin, 2020 to 2024
Source: Calculated from Dave Leip’s Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections
Overall, 29 states worth 287 electoral votes gave Trump a larger two-party presidential margin than the nation (that also includes the single electoral vote in Maine’s 2nd Congressional District). We describe those states as having a Republican-leaning “presidential deviation,” shaded in red in the 2024 “PD” column on Table 1. The 21 states plus Washington, D.C. that voted more Democratic than the nation are shown as having a negative number in the table and are shaded in blue (this group also includes the single electoral vote in Nebraska’s 2nd District, for a total of 251 electoral votes).
This statistic, presidential deviation, is what we’re going to explore for the rest of this piece. This measures the difference between the 2-party vote share in a state versus the nation.
Let’s use Virginia as an example to explain what we’re doing here.
Trump won the national 2-party vote 50.75%-49.25%, or a 1.5 percentage point margin. In Virginia, Harris won by a 52.95%-47.05% margin, or 5.9 points. The difference between Trump’s Virginia share, 47.05%, and his national share, 50.75%, is -3.7, which rounds to -4, so the presidential deviation for Virginia in 2024 was 4 points in the Democrats’ direction, or D +4.
We can track this over time to see how a state voted relative to the nation. Let’s look at Virginia again:
2008: The Democratic presidential candidate, Barack Obama, won 53.7% of the 2-party vote nationally. He won 53.2% in Virginia. 53.7% – 53.2% = 0.5, which rounds up to R +1.
2012: 52.0% nationally – 52.0% in Virginia = 0, so no presidential deviation at all.
2016: 51.1% nationally – 52.8% in Virginia = -1.7, rounding to -2 or D +2 (remember, negative numbers indicate a Democratic lean here, while positive ones represent a Republican lean).
2020: 52.3 nationally – 55.2% in Virginia = -2.9, rounding to -3, or D +3.
And then, as noted above, the deviation was D +4 in 2024, so Virginia has been getting more Democratic relative to the nation over the past several elections. We will use this calculation to see how all of the states have changed relative to the nation in presidential voting since 2000.
This presidential deviation statistic is a little different than the commonly-cited Partisan Voting Index, created by our friends at the Cook Political Report. The PVI takes into account the last two presidential elections to determine the lean in a given district or state. Our presidential deviation calculation only involves how much more Republican or Democratic a state was compared to the nation in a given year. The charts below track the presidential deviation of each of the 50 states over the last 7 elections. We separated the states into 10 different regional groups to make it easier to see the trendlines for the individual states. This gives us a sense of how the states vote relative to the nation, and how their positioning has changed or remained the same.
As you look at the charts, keep in mind that the key on the y-axis showing the range of presidential deviations from high positive numbers (most Republican) to high negative (most Democratic) differs from chart to chart, so re-orient yourself as you move from region to region. In any event, the closer any state is to zero in a given year, the closer it was to voting the same way the nation voted in that year. A line that is moving upwards across the 7 elections indicates a state is getting more Republican relative to the nation; one that moves downward indicates a state is getting more Democratic. We will start out west and move east.
Chart 1: Presidential deviation trend in Pacific states, 2000-2024
Setting aside Alaska—the one Republican-leaning state among this group, albeit not quite as Republican-leaning as it used to be—the story of the remaining quartet in this category (California, Hawaii, Oregon, and Washington) has been a general Democratic trend, at least when comparing 2000 with 2024. Hawaii is typically the most Democratic of these states and Oregon the least. Despite California having one of the biggest shifts toward Trump of any state in 2024, it is still very clearly Democratic leaning, and it is considerably more Democratic-leaning than it was a quarter-century ago.
Hawaii saw one of the largest movements of any chart in this article: from 2004 to 2008, it moved close to 15 points leftward as one of its natives (Obama) led the Democratic ticket—it voted similarly in 2012, although it has since moved more into line with the region. Alaska saw a similar though far less pronounced shift in the GOP direction in 2008, as its then-governor, Sarah Palin (R), was also on a national ticket, but the larger story in Alaska has been a slow decline in its still-robust Republican lean.
Chart 2: Presidential deviation trend in Northern Interior West states, 2000-2024
These are all very clearly Republican-leaning states, and there’s not much interesting going on in them at the presidential level. Montana remains the most competitive of these 5 states, but not only is it not close to being a Democratic target at the presidential level, it just voted out its last prominent Democratic officeholder, as Sen. Jon Tester (D) lost his reelection bid. Wyoming was the most Republican-leaning state in the nation in all 3 of Trump’s elections.
Chart 3: Presidential deviation trend in Southwest states, 2000-2024
The argument that Kamala Harris held up better in the swing states than in the nation as a whole is best countered by the two western battlegrounds, Arizona and Nevada. While neither state quite matched the national swing toward Trump of 6.0 points in the 2-party vote, both came very close (5.6 points in Nevada and 5.9 in Arizona). Meanwhile, Colorado—one of the clear success stories for Democrats in the Trump era—took over for New Mexico as the most Democratic-leaning state among this group in 2020 and retained that edge in 2024. Utah, which before the Trump era was arguably the most Republican state in the Union, has been surpassed by others even as it still remains very clearly right of center.
Chart 4: Presidential deviation trend in South Central states, 2000-2024
The presidential deviation of three of these states (Arkansas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma) has been very steady since 2008, when they all became significantly more Republican than the nation than they were before, and they have remained as such. Texas, meanwhile, got more competitive relative to the nation with the emergence of Trump, but it still retains a healthy Republican lean that got a bit stronger in 2024 than it was in 2020. Blocking Democrats from making Texas a swing state is important for Republicans in the longer term, and 2024 represented an encouraging sign for them in maintaining their dominance of this fast-growing megastate.
Chart 5: Presidential deviation trend in Western Midwestern states, 2000-2024
Minnesota is far from being the most Democratic state in the country, but it continues to have the longest streak of voting Democratic for president of any state, which dates back to 1976. The other states in this group are clearly Republican, as Iowa had a PD of R +6 for the third election in a row and the others are more Republican. It wouldn’t surprise us if Iowa eventually became more Republican-leaning than Kansas—the Sunflower State, which like Utah has some of the most rock-ribbed Republican DNA of any state (Democrats have not won a Senate race there since 1932), has seen some Republican erosion in the Trump era. In 2020, Kansas voted less Republican than neighboring Missouri for the first time in over 100 years, and the gap between the two states grew in 2024. Maybe Iowa is next.
Chart 6: Presidential deviation trend in Eastern Midwestern states, 2000-2024
Like Iowa, Ohio took a big jump toward the Republicans in Trump’s first election and has stayed there after previously voting very close to the national popular vote. Neighbors Illinois and Indiana remain clearly Democratic and Republican-leaning, respectively—Barack Obama carrying Indiana in 2008 may be the “flukiest” presidential result in any state this century given how the state has otherwise voted (the 2008 dip in its GOP lean really stands out on Chart 6). Michigan and Wisconsin flipping from Biden back to Trump but moving back to having very slight Democratic leans relative to the nation—they both are on the blue side of a 0 deviation, as indicated on Table 1—helps illustrate the elimination of the GOP advantage in the Electoral College, at least in this election.
Chart 7: Presidential deviation trend in Greater Appalachian states, 2000-2024
Not much to see here—all of these states are very substantially Republican and each had stable presidential deviations across all 3 of Trump’s elections. After spending much of the 20th century as a Democratic-leaning presidential state, West Virginia switched to Republican for president in 2000 and has since become one of the most Republican states in the country.
Chart 8: Presidential deviation trend in Southern Atlantic states, 2000-2024
This may be the most dynamic region, at least in terms of states moving both in and out of the competitive zone in the Electoral College. While Harris did worse in Georgia and North Carolina than Biden did, the fall-off was small enough that both states became less Republican relative to the nation. In fact, Georgia came within less than a point of voting more Democratic than the nation, which it hasn’t done since favorite son Jimmy Carter was on the ballot in 1980 (that was also the last time North Carolina voted more Democratic than the nation). Particularly following the 2030 census, when blue states may hemorrhage more electoral votes to red states like Florida and Texas, winning at least one of Georgia or North Carolina may become a necessary part of future Democratic presidential victories. Florida, meanwhile, continued its rapid movement right, while Virginia’s deviation got slightly bluer. Talk about two ships passing in the night—Virginia moved from having a presidential deviation 4 points redder than Florida in 2000 to being 10 points bluer by 2024. Alone among the states in this region, South Carolina’s Republican-favoring presidential deviation has been very stable all century.
Chart 9: Presidential deviation trend in Middle Atlantic states, 2000-2024
Every state in this region leans Democratic, with the exception of Pennsylvania, the “tipping-point” state in this election. The recent history also adds some context to the shifts of New Jersey and New York in this election. Unlike California, which is more Democratic now than it was in 2000, both New Jersey and New York are less Democratic now than they were a quarter century ago, even as they remain to the left of the nation overall. Maryland, although starting in the same place as New Jersey in 2000, has now become way more Democratic than the Garden State is. Delaware’s position, meanwhile, is fairly stable, kind of a Democratic counterpart to Republican South Carolina in the previous section. The District of Columbia, not included on the chart because it would distort it, has been at least D +40 in every election this century (a Republican presidential nominee has not won even a double-digit share of the vote there since 1988).
Chart 10: Presidential deviation trend in New England states, 2000-2024
A Republican nominee has not won a state in New England since George W. Bush carried New Hampshire in 2000, and the Granite State remains the most competitive state in the region. Given shifts elsewhere, Harris actually held up reasonably well in Maine, despite once again losing the state’s 2nd Congressional District, which Trump carried for the third straight time. Rhode Island, like New Jersey and New York, has gotten considerably less Democratic relative to the nation, but not by enough to make it competitive. Vermont, for the second straight election, gave the Democratic nominee the best margin of any state. The Green Mountain State, one of only two states (Maine was the other) that never voted for Franklin Roosevelt in any of his 4 elections, is proof that states can change quite dramatically in relation to the nation, although one does not have to go back to the days of FDR to see that—it’s evident from the charts above, which only go back a quarter century.