The presidential race is still poised to be decided by the six most competitive states.
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Republican presidential candidate, former President Donald Trump, left, speaks at a campaign rally in Las Vegas, June 9, 2024, and President Joe Biden speaks at White House in Washington, June 4, 2024.
With about five months to go until the votes are counted, the presidential election is close. Just as it has been for many months.
In our first reassessment of the electoral landscape since early January, we are changing the ratings for a few states in the presidential race, but only for a handful of states on the fringes of the competitive battlefield
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The presidential race is still poised to be decided by the six states we rate as Toss-ups: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, plus the Omaha-based 2nd congressional district of Nebraska, which, under state law, has its own electoral vote.
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Adding together the states leaning heavily or modestly to their party, the Republicans have 235 electoral votes, while the equivalent number for Democrats is 225. Since 270 electoral votes is the magic number to win the presidential race, the remainder – 78 electoral votes in the Toss-up category – will likely decide the election.
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Based on current polling and reporting, the most plausible path for Democratic President Joe Biden is to win the three northern Toss-up states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, plus the one competitive electoral vote in Nebraska. That would bring Biden’s total to precisely 270. This seems like Biden’s best shot because his polling has been holding up better in these three northern states than in the Sunbelt states of Arizona, Georgia and Nevada.
Meanwhile, the most plausible Republican path to victory would be to flip those Sunbelt states of Arizona, Georgia and Nevada – each of which was won by Biden in 2020 – plus any one of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
As always, our assessment is based on reporting with state and national political observers, and the categories we use are Safe Republican, Likely Republican, Lean Republican, Toss-up, Lean Democratic, Likely Democratic and Safe Democratic.
The one state that remains closest to the Toss-up category, but still outside it, is North Carolina. In this analysis, North Carolina remains Lean Republican. Should Biden pull off an upset in North Carolina, which has 16 electoral votes, it would be a major boost for his candidacy.
As usual in our analyses, the seats are listed in descending order from those most likely to go Republican to those most likely to go Democratic. (The exceptions are the Safe Republican and Safe Democratic categories, which are listed alphabetically.) With this analysis, we have made some modest shifts to reorder the states within these categories, but the broad contours of the presidential race remain much the same as they were six months ago.
A wild card is whether Robert F. Kennedy Jr. or other third-party candidates make the ballot in battleground states, potentially affecting the result.
The states we’ve shifted from one category to another tend to be on the periphery of the race.
The most notable recategorization we’ve made concerns two Biden-won states, Virginia and Minnesota; both move from Likely Democratic to Lean Democratic. While we still think Biden is positioned to win both states, polling shows narrower-than-expected, mid-single-digit margins for Biden.
We have also shifted New Mexico from Safe Democratic to Likely Democratic, amid concerns about Biden’s ability to maintain the traditional Democratic edge with Hispanic voters.
These shifts don’t mean that any of these states will join the top-tier ranks of Republican targets in the presidential race; in fact, we wouldn’t be surprised if we eventually shifted some or all of them back in the Democratic direction as the race develops and as disaffected Democratic voters “come home” to Biden. But we think shifting them modestly in the GOP’s direction at this point is prudent.
The one instance where we have shifted a state in the Democratic direction is Maine. Like Nebraska, Maine allocates two electoral votes for the statewide presidential winner and one for each of its two congressional districts. We already had Maine’s Portland-based 1st District as Safe Democratic, and we’ve now shifted the pair of statewide electoral votes from Likely Democratic to Safe Democratic. The more rural 2nd District remains at Lean Republican.
On the Republican side of the ledger, our only change is to shift Ohio from Likely Republican to Safe Republican.
Here’s our full ordering of the states, with their electoral votes in parentheses. We’ve marked the states that have changed categories in this assessment.
Safe Republican (148)
Alabama (9)
Alaska (3)
Arkansas (6)
Idaho (4)
Indiana (11)
Iowa (6)
Kansas (6)
Kentucky (8)
Louisiana (8)
Mississippi (6)
Missouri (10)
Montana (4)
Nebraska, except District 2 (4)
North Dakota (3)
Ohio (17) (Shift from Likely Republican)
Oklahoma (7)
South Carolina (9)
South Dakota (3)
Tennessee (11)
Utah (6)
West Virginia (4)
Wyoming (3)
Likely Republican (70)
Texas (40)
Florida (30)
Lean Republican (17)
Maine District 2 (1)
North Carolina (16)
Total Electoral Votes Leaning to Republicans: 235
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Toss-Up (78)
Georgia (16)
Arizona (11)
Nevada (6)
Wisconsin (10)
Michigan (15)
Pennsylvania (19)
Nebraska District 2 (1)
Total Electoral Votes Leaning to Democrats: 225
Lean Democratic (27)
New Hampshire (4)
Virginia (13) (Shift from Likely Democratic)
Minnesota (10) (Shift from Likely Democratic)
Likely Democratic (5)
New Mexico (5) (Shift from Safe Democratic)
Safe Democratic (193)
California (54)
Colorado (10)
Connecticut (7)
Delaware (3)
District of Columbia (3)
Hawaii (4)
Illinois (19)
Maine, statewide (2) (Shift from Likely Democratic)
Maine District 1 (1)
Maryland (10)
Massachusetts (11)
New Jersey (14)
New York (28)
Oregon (8)
Rhode Island (4)
Vermont (3)
Washington (12)
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