The State of the 2024 Election: Six Weeks Out

For reference, all election ratings used in the text and maps of the article employ this color-coded system: 

Safe Democratic: Dark Blue

Likely Democratic: Light Blue

Lean Democratic: Pale Blue

Tossup: Beige

Lean Republican: Pale Red

Likely Republican: Light Red

Safe Republican: Dark Red

All polling averages are from FiveThirtyEight. 

 

The Presidential Election

Ratings Changes:

Pennsylvania: Tossup → Lean Democratic

Wisconsin: Tossup → Lean Democratic

NATIONAL: Harris +2.8 (+0.2)

Swing States 

Lean Democratic

Wisconsin: Harris + 2.2 (+0.5) 

Michigan: Harris + 2.7 (+0.1)

Tossup

Pennsylvania: Harris + 1.3 (no change)

North Carolina: Trump +0.3 (+0.2)

Georgia: Trump +0.8 (+0.3)

Arizona: Trump +1.1 (+0.5)

Nevada: Harris +0.7 (no change)

Peripheral States

Florida (Likely R): Trump +4.0 (+0.2)

Texas (Likely R): Trump +5.9 (no change)

New Hampshire (Likely D): Harris +7.1 (+0.4)

Virginia (Likely D): Harris +6.8 (+0.2)

 

The State of the Senate

Ratings Changes: None this week.

 

Gubernatorial Elections

Ratings Changes: None this week.

 

Who’s Favored, Finance Data, and the Washington Primary

The 2024 election remains fairly stable on the surface, though the past week has seen some interesting developments under the lid. As of now, neither presidential candidate has a clear advantage in the Electoral College, though Harris maintains a slight lead in the popular vote. The Senate situation remains somewhat favorable to Republicans, though they are not quite guaranteed to flip the chamber. 

There are only two ratings changes this week—the shifts in favor of Harris in Wisconsin and Michigan—but they are fairly important ones. While Harris’s leads have been relatively small in these states, they are the highest of any candidate in any swing state, and polling in those states has remained consistently favorable to her. Even with these ratings changes, however, Harris’s electoral vote count is under 270; at least from a polling perspective, the race is very much a tossup, though current trends seem to favor Harris. 

According to polling, even if Harris wins, she is not guaranteed a sympathetic Congress. The House will likely be led by the same party that wins the presidency (though this is not guaranteed; in 2012, for example, Barack Obama won the presidency while Republicans held the House). The Senate is likely to go Republican—almost certainly if Trump wins, and arguably slightly more likely than not if Harris wins. 

What about metrics besides polling, however? Polling can approximate the way a race is going, but it isn’t perfect. Sometimes, it’s better to look for other indicators–namely, financial data, and, surprisingly enough, the state of Washington’s primary. Both of these metrics paint a rosier picture for Harris than current polling, and may help to explain a surprising result in November. 

Money and Politics

In American politics, money is everything. Candidates without a reliable source of money may find themselves outcompeted by their opponent’s TV advertisements, constituent outreach, and quality campaign advisors. Indeed, especially since the Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United v. FEC in 2010, which removed many major restrictions on campaign spending and donations, the most important factor in a candidate’s victory after the partisan makeup of the state is how much money they can spend compared to their opponent. This means it is essential to pay attention to where money is going—and where it’s coming from—to understand the dynamics of the 2024 election. 

According to Forbes, since January 2023, the Harris (and previously Biden) campaign has raised almost $700 million. The Trump campaign, on the other hand, has raised just over $300 million. The top ten pro-Harris super PACs have raised approximately $250 million, while the top ten pro-Trump super PACs have raised over $325 million. While Trump has a greater ability to self-fund and support from numerous billionaire donors who could make massive last-minute contributions to tip the scales in his favor, it is clear that the Harris campaign has a considerable fundraising advantage—one that could matter significantly in the last weeks of a tight campaign. 

While Harris’s numbers spell good news for her, this impressive fundraising hasn’t translated to financial dominance by Democrats in many other competitive races. While the Democratic National Committee has outraised the Republican National Committee by over $50 million and  Democratic Senate candidates in states such as Ohio and Montana have massive fundraising advantages, injections of cash from other sources have made things more difficult for Democrats. In Ohio, for instance, cryptocurrency groups have spent almost $40 million on ads supporting Bernie Moreno, the Republican candidate for Senate. Concerned about their prospects in Ohio and Montana, Democrats are attempting to compensate by ramping up spending in Texas and Florida, where Republicans have a financial advantage at the moment but Democrats have lots of room to improve. Whether or not this gamble pays out could drastically affect the ability of a hypothetical Harris administration to pass legislation. 

The Washington Primary

In most conventional political wisdom, the results of primaries are, at best, a passable but flawed indicator of partisan enthusiasm, and little more. Primary results from individual states tend to fluctuate from cycle to cycle, and often hold little predictive value. For various reasons, however, the primary results from the state of Washington state, once processed through a specific formula (this is done by finding the combined partisan vote margin for all House primaries in Washington and subtracting 12; e.g. if Democrats win the combined House primary vote by 15%, they would be expected to win nationally by 3%), tend to be remarkably predictive of election results in November—especially for the House of Representatives. In 2020, for instance, the primary results, adjusted with the formula, predicted that the combined House vote would produce a 2% lead for Democrats; the final result was a 3% lead. In 2022, it predicted a roughly 2% lead for Republicans; the final result was, again, a 3% lead. In 2018, the formula was almost exactly on the spot, with an error of only 0.1% from the final result. 

Many election analysts, such as those at Split Ticket, have gone into greater detail on why, exactly, the Washington primary is a relatively accurate predictive indicator. Some believe that the results are closer to the general election than other states because turnout is so high in Washington primary elections. Others believe, however, that the demographics of Washington—when the urban, highly-educated, left-trending urban counties are excluded—are remarkably similar to those of Midwestern swing states such as Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan. 

Assuming these reasons hold up, the 2024 Washington primary should make Democrats fairly optimistic about their prospects for both the presidential and congressional elections. Using the existing formula, Democrats are predicted to win the House popular vote by around 4 points, a slight improvement from 2020’s numbers. If the difference between the House vote and presidential vote remains the same as it was in 2020, this would amount to a roughly 6-point popular vote victory by Kamala Harris—almost certainly enough to win the election. Bellwethers come and go all the time, however, so it is important to recognize that while the Washington primary may have some predictive value, we cannot really know the final outcome of the election until November 5—or maybe even later.