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OVERVIEW
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, to capture the Presidency, the Senate and the House of Representatives. 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, Michigan and Wisconsin to secure, as of this writing, 292 electoral votes, or 22 more than necessary to clinch the national election. Still outstanding are Arizona and Nevada – and Trump leads in both.
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 – flipped by Gov. Jim Justice's win over his Democratic challenger, Glenn Elliott. 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 Democrats managed to hold the line in Wisconsin, where incumbent Sen. Tammy Baldwin was declared the winner on Wednesday in her race against GOP challenger Eric Hovde. Meanwhile, the Senate races in Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania remain uncalled. Of this group, Pennsylvania appears to be the GOP's best chance at 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, while 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 seats fighting for survival. Currently, 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, who currently leads incumbent Rep. Mary Peltola (D-Bethel). The Top Four Ranked Choice Voting system appears headed for elimination, owing to the passage of a repeal ballot measure. Therefore, this could be the last Alaska race that sees an election going to the Ranked Choice Voting round.
EARLY VOTING
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 sign that Republicans were headed for a strong election night.
Perhaps the biggest clue to be gleaned from early-voting data was the growing strength of Republican early-voting numbers in rural communities and counties across the nation – especially when contrasted against the Democrats' underperformance in urban areas. The suburbs were slightly above previous performance, which marginally helped the Democrats.
Overall, early voting was down compared to the last presidential election period. In 2020, more than 103 million people voted early, while in 2024, the final number will total approximately 80 million.
The decline, while significant, is not surprising. In 2020, owing to the Covid outbreak, the courts instituted virtual universal mail-in voting on an emergency basis. However, as the courts cannot arbitrarily change state election law on a permanent basis, the laws later returned to their pre-2020 status, except in cases where a particular state enacted new legislation following the 2020 election.
Overall turnout, meanwhile, 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.
PRESIDENT
As of this writing, President-Elect Trump has captured 292 electoral votes; this tally, however, could go as high as 312 if his leads in Alaska, Arizona and Nevada hold.
The Trump victory marks only the second time in US history that a President who was defeated for re-election returned four years later to recapture the White House. After losing his 1888 re-election bid, President Grover Cleveland returned in 1892 to win a second non-consecutive term. Now, 132 years later, Mr. Trump has repeated the feat.
Trump won his second term by cobbling together a coalition of rural voters, working-class whites, Evangelicals, practicing Catholics, and non-college-degreed individuals; and by performing better with African American men and Hispanics. When the final numbers become known, it is likely Mr. Trump will finish in the low double-digits among blacks, and surpass the 40% mark among Hispanics. Both percentages are improvements over previous Republican presidential nominees' figures.
As has been his history, Trump performed better than predicted in the battleground states, and in most states last night, he posted his best numbers of his three presidential runs. The former President exceeded the bare minimum needed to win again, and he reconverted at least four states – Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin – that he won in 2016 but lost in 2020. Arizona 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, Trump may carry the popular vote. As of press time, he stands at approximately 51% of the national popular vote, as compared to Ms. Harris' 47.5% – a margin of approximately 4.8 million votes. This could change when western states such as California, Oregon and Washington finish counting. Considering that Trump is improving his standing in those states, however, he may still hang on to the national popular vote lead once all counting concludes, but with a reduced margin.
SENATE
As expected, Republicans did wrest the Senate majority away from the Democrats on Tuesday night. It appears their total could potentially hit 54 seats, but more likely 52 or, possibly, 53.
Seats flipping 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 to become an Independent. Representative 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 Sen. Ted Cruz fought off a tough challenge from Rep. Colin Allred (D-Dallas) to notch a decisive 53-44% victory.
The key to Republicans winning their new majority was to secure all eleven in-cycle Senate seats, a goal that was achieved.
HOUSE
While early in the evening it appeared that Democrats would claim a small majority in the US House, it now looks as if the Republicans will maintain their slim advantage.
A better picture will emerge once more complete results are known. This is likely to take days, if not weeks, as signatures attached to the large numbers of mail-in ballots must be verified. Western states like Alaska, Arizona, California and Washington follow laborious counting procedures, as each allows ballots to come after the election. These states will provide the lion's share of the final margin, once their numbers are released closer to each state's particular certification deadline.
Currently, it appears that Republicans and Democrats may trade approximately eight seats that each party currently holds. The fact that Republicans gained three seats in North Carolina owing to redistricting in 2023 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 at one point 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.
Others, like Reps. Susan Wild (D-PA) and Matt Cartwright (D-PA) are falling short in their bids for re-election, and appear to be following colleagues such as Reps. Marc Molinaro (R-NY) and Brandon Williams (R-NY) toward defeat.
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, as well as the at-large seat in Alaska are all too close to call. Each will have a major effect on which party will control the House.
Iowa Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-LeClaire), who narrowly won her seat in 2020, is stranded in another nail-biter. With 98% of the vote tabulated, Ms. Miller-Meeks leads by fewer than 800 votes.
Together, all the numbers and trends suggest that the Republicans will maintain control of the House, with potentially a majority similar to their current five-seat split.
GOVERNOR
Eleven gubernatorial races were decided on Tuesday night. The most competitive, in New Hampshire, 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, following the implosion of Republican Lt. Governor Mark Robinson's campaign.
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). Representative 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.
Governors Greg Gianforte (R-MT), Spencer Cox (R-UT) and Phil Scott (R-VT) were all easily re-elected.
POLLING
Generally, pollsters are taking hits for missing the national presidential outcome. While their surveys were generally correct – 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 over performed within the electorate, based upon the projected polling data. Therefore, the pollsters seemed to cumulatively miss the margin of most races. A possible reason for the fumble is a de-emphasis of voter history in deference to polling methodology.
Certainly, the national popular vote was a cumulative miss, as almost all polls found 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.
Jim Ellis is a 35-year veteran of politics at the state and national levels. He has served ss executive director for two national political action committees, as well as a consultant to the three national Republican Party organizations in DC, the National Federation of Independent Business, and various national conservative groups.
Born and raised in Sacramento, California, he earned a B. A. in Political Science from the University of California at Davis in 1979. Jim raised his daughter, Jacqueline, alone after his wife died following a tragic car accident. He helped establish the Joan Ellis Victims Assistance Network in Rochester, NH. Jim also is a member of the Northern Virginia Football Officials Association, which officiates high school games throughout the region.