The Eight States That Will Likely Decide the Winner of the 2024 Presidential Election

Four years later, President Joe Biden evicted Trump from the White House by stitching together narrow margins of victory in a handful of states despite winning the popular vote by nearly 7 million. Just 44,000 votes in Georgia, Arizona, and Wisconsin separated Biden and Trump from a 269-269 Electoral College tie, which likely would have meant the GOP incumbent’s reelection.

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Fast forward to the 2024 contest, all signs are pointing to this race being as tight as ever. In a closely divided country where voter attitudes have hardened during the Trump era to back Republicans or Democrats consistently, the outcome of the race rests on just eight states.

*This story was originally published August 4, 2023, when a Trump v Biden rematch seemed likely.*

Arizona: 11 electoral votes

The Grand Canyon State was once such a Republican stronghold that from 1952 to 2016, only a single Democratic nominee won its electoral votes, President Bill Clinton, in his 1996 reelection. But shifting demographics and rapid population growth have changed Arizona’s political complexion.

Biden won there in 2020 by 10,457 votes out of nearly 3.4 million cast (49.36% to 49.06%).

Meanwhile, the state’s senators are Democrats for the first time since the early 1950s. Moreover, in 2022, Democrats won the governorship and the attorney general and secretary of state offices.

Nor do Republicans hold the majority in voter registration anymore. Independents are now the largest group in the electorate, with 34.55%, per the Arizona secretary of state. Republicans are just behind at 34.42% and Democrats further back at 30.02%.

GOP consultant Chuck Coughlin, CEO and president of the Phoenix-based HighGround, Inc., told the Washington Examiner that 4-point difference could be an advantage for the GOP in trying to retake Arizona in 2024.

Ron Nehring, a GOP political consultant, told the Washington Examiner that winning in 2024 would require bickering Republican factions to unite, specifically MAGA followers of Trump and supporters of the late Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain, an embodiment of the traditional party establishment.

“The swing constituency in Arizona are people who like John McCain, and you can’t win that state if the people who like John McCain are voting for Joe Biden or the Democrats,” Nehring, a former California Republican Party chairman, said.

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Georgia: 16 electoral votes

Georgia is another longtime Republican state that is now purple as its population continues to swell. Biden in 2020 beat Trump in Georgia by 11,779 votes out of nearly 5 million cast (49.47% to 49.24%). The last Democratic nominee to win Georgia was Bill Clinton in 1992.

“I think the question going into 2024 is whether or not the 2020 results were an outlier,” said Andra Gillespie, a political science professor at Emory University. “If it is Trump vs. Biden, I think the assumption is that there’s a sliver of Georgia Republicans [who] find him problematic and will abstain from voting for president,” Gillespie said.

Gillespie believes that “traditional well-established Republicans” still have an edge in the state, possibly providing the GOP an avenue in 2024. “But if you are an embattled Republican, Democrats have inroads against you.”

Recent down-ballot races offer both parties hope. The 2022 midterm elections showed Republicans are still competitive in the state as Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA) and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger prevailed over their Democratic opponents by large margins, Gillespie said. Democrats, though, hold both Peach State Senate seats.

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Michigan: 15 electoral votes 

Michigan has gone for both parties in the two most recent presidential races. Trump flipped the Wolverine State in 2016 by the smallest margin in the nation before Biden won it back for the Democrats in 2020.

In recent history, Michigan had largely become a blue stronghold, with no Republican having won the state since former President George H.W. Bush did in 1988 before Trump eked out his 2016 win against Hillary Clinton. Michigan had been part of a “blue wall,” along with Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, that voted for the Democratic presidential nominee six straight times from 1992 to 2012.

Democrats have had much recent success in Michigan, where Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI) easily won reelection in 2022 while Democrats captured majorities in both chambers of the state legislature for the first time in nearly 40 years.

Heading into 2024, Republican strategist Dennis Darnoi, who is based in Michigan, said he doesn’t believe there has been a big enough change in Republicans’ messaging that would help produce a different result in a Biden-Trump rematch. Darnoi said Republicans have not done well in the last three election cycles due to opposing legalized abortion and parroting Trump’s false claims of a stolen 2020 election.

Biden beat Trump by a 2.8% margin in 2020. Still, a third-party candidate could eat into the pool of people that vote for one of the two parties. Democrats are concerned the Washington, D.C.-based group No Labels could run a candidate who would siphon off votes from Biden. And professor Cornel West is already running to Biden’s left as a Green Party candidate. With enough spoilers on the Michigan ballot, a critical amount of votes could get drained from Biden, keeping the state in play as a swing state.

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New Hampshire: 4 electoral votes

New Hampshire has not gone to Republicans since the 2000 presidential election. But Democratic wins there have been far from overwhelming, giving Republicans hope of a comeback in a state where GOP figures like retiring Gov. Chris Sununu (R-NH) have thrived politically.

Sununu’s looming departure creates an open-seat governor’s race, which both sides will strongly contest. Christopher Hahn, a Democratic consultant, said it’s more of a question of whether the Republican Party will want to invest the time needed to potentially flip a state it has lost for 20 years for a mere four electoral votes.

“It’s a sizable investment,” Hahn said. “They’ve chased that investment before and not done well.”

Darnoi echoed Hahn’s sentiment, saying he would “keep an eye on New Hampshire,” where in 2020, Biden beat Trump 52.71% to 45.36%. “But I don’t know that I would necessarily start to invest a lot of resources in there just yet.”

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Nevada: 6 electoral votes

Republicans have not flipped the state of Nevada in the last four presidential cycles. Still, Democrats’ presidential victories have been close enough to keep Republicans playing there. Trump lost Nevada in 2016 and 2020 by less than 3 percentage points.

Hahn said that while Nevada is always in play, the state has seen a growing suburban and urban population. Its Republican-heavy rural population has shrunk in recent years, Hahn added.

“States that have growing urban and suburban populations and shrinking rural populations at this point in time are trending Democratic away and trending away from the GOP,” Hahn, a former top aide to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), said.

During the 2020 election, Biden won the majority vote for every voting group except white voters and voters 45 and older, securing his win in the state.

The Republican nominee will likely need to make inroads with suburban voters in the state to flip it in 2024.

North Carolina: 16 electoral votes

North Carolina is a source of enduring frustration for Democrats. Barack Obama won it in his 2008 romp over McCain, the first time the Tar Heel State had gone blue since 1976. But Obama lost North Carolina in 2012, even while easily winning reelection. Trump then beat Hillary Clinton and Biden in the state in the next two presidential elections.

“North Carolina may be close and may be one of those things that gives you a little bit of heartache going through the night,” Darnoi said about Democratic chances there. “But certainly, if you’re worrying about North Carolina until Election Day, you’ve got bigger problems.”

However, recent cycles indicate that the state could be trending away from the Republican Party and might be on its way to becoming a “true purple state,” Hahn, noting an influx of professional workers in the Research Triangle around Raleigh-Durham and the high population of college students, said.

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Pennsylvania: 19 electoral votes

Once a Democratic stronghold, Pennsylvania has been a state to watch after Trump became the first Republican to win it since 1988.

Biden ultimately flipped the state blue again in 2020, largely due to voter turnout in population-dense areas like Philadelphia and its suburbs. As both parties’ front-runners have netted a win in the state, it’ll likely be a state both sides will target in the 2024 election, Gillespie said.

Christopher Nicholas, a veteran Republican political consultant in Pennsylvania, doesn’t see either party running off with the state should it host a rematch between Biden and Trump. Still, Nicholas said that since there are more Democratic voters in the state, the party starts off “with a little edge.”

Pennsylvania’s annual voter registration report for 2022 showed more than 500,000 registered Democrats than Republicans.

“It’s hard right now in Pennsylvania to see a path to victory for Trump in 2024 in the general election,” Nicholas said.

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Wisconsin: 10 electoral votes

Signs point to Democrats netting Wisconsin’s 10 electoral votes in 2024. The state, which has flipped between both parties in recent cycles, had a high-profile judicial election in April in which the left-leaning candidate beat the conservative pick.

Hahn said the race is a “very promising sign for Democrats” heading into 2024 as Republicans pour money into the contest.

The election was the most expensive judicial race in U.S. history, with donors on both sides of the aisle bringing in about $45 million to the contest.

“[Republicans] billed it as one of the most important races this year, and Democrats won,” Hahn said.

The state will be a top priority for both states heading into 2024. Wisconsin has played a key role in four of the past six presidential cycles, with Biden only beating Trump by less than 1 percentage point in 2020.

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The 2024 election will be one to watch as the GOP primary field prepares to take the debate stage in Milwaukee in just a few weeks on Aug. 23.

Trump has indicated he will not participate in the event, while other candidates, such as Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), have confirmed they plan to take their place on the stage.