Looking to the 2024 presidential race, Donald Trump is ahead where it counts: in electoral votes. While national polls show a dead heat, they do not tell the whole story. If the battleground states break the way current polling shows, Trump has the chance to break his electoral vote margin of victory over Hillary Clinton in 2016. And all this could occur regardless of how the popular vote plays out next November and despite the numerous, well-publicized criminal and civil indictments against him.
On Oct. 19, Bloomberg-Morning Consult released a series of polls in seven battleground states (Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennslyvania, and Wisconsin). Although his lead is within the polls’ margins of error, Trump leads in five of the seven states. In the other two, he is tied in Michigan and trails by just 3 percentage points in Nevada. To put this into 2024 context: Trump lost six of these states in 2020, winning only North Carolina.
While Bloomberg-Morning Consult did not release a national poll, RealClearPolitics’ Oct. 19 average of national polling showed Biden and Trump tied at 43.9 percent apiece.
When is a tie a loss in presidential elections? When it occurs in the popular vote — but not in the Electoral College vote. That is because the electoral vote determines the winner; the popular vote is just for show.
Think it cannot happen? It already did in 2016. Trump lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton by 2.1 percentage points (45.9 percent to 48 percent), but he beat her 306 to 232 where it
