The United States electoral map now looks significantly different than it did prior to Donald Trump’s arrival on the political scene. The president-elect’s anti-establishment, Main Street–focused policies have improved Republican fortunes in some states and diminished them in others, though not in equal measure. Trump’s emergence has left the “blue wall” of old—the Democrats’ allegedly impenetrable hold on Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin—lying in purple ruins, and has altered the map in other ways, as well.
Of the seven states that averaged the narrowest margins of victory across the presidential elections from 1996 to 2012, only two (Nevada and New Hampshire) were among the seven closest in 2024. The other five closest from 1996 to 2012—Florida, Iowa, Missouri, Ohio, and Virginia—were replaced by Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin in 2024.
Remarkably, Trump’s margin of victory in Florida in 2024 was larger than Kamala Harris’s in New York. Such a result seemed unthinkable until it happened. In the seven prior presidential elections, the margin of victory in New York generally exceeded that in Florida by more than 20 percentage points; as recently as 2020, the Empire’s State’s margin lapped the Sunshine States’s by 19.7 points (as Joe Biden won New York by 23.1 points while Trump won Florida by 3.4 points). Then, out of nowhere, came 2024: Harris winning New York by 12.5 points, but Trump taking Florida by 13.1 points.
This Republican rout in what had long been a quintessential swing state was a result of Trump’s and Florida governor Ron DeSantis’s making a formidable, if somewhat unorthodox, team. Trump’s endorsement helped DeSantis get elected in 2018, and DeSantis’s ensuing popularity in office—a product of his blending governmental competence with a singular willingness to question establishment “experts” (particularly on Covid)—made the Sunshine State increasingly fertile ground for Trump. While the two “teammates” haven’t always gotten along, the electoral results in the nation’s third-largest state have been remarkable. In the more than 35 years since Ronald Reagan left office in January 1989, no other presidential candidate of either party has won Florida by even half as much as Trump did in 2024.
Florida wasn’t the only place where Trump made huge gains relative to his recent Republican predecessors. The ribbon of interconnected states running through Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Iowa has held vital importance for American presidential elections for more than 150 years. From Abraham Lincoln’s election in 1860 through Trump’s victory in 2024, the presidential candidate who has won a majority of those five states has won 35 of 42 elections (83 percent); candidates who have swept all five have won 26 of 27 races (96 percent). (The one exception? James Blaine, who swept those five states but lost the 1884 election by a sliver; he would have defeated Grover Cleveland had he garnered just 1,150 more votes in the state of New York.)
In presidential races spanning 1996 through 2012, Republican candidates won the respective contests in those five key states just 12 percent of the time (three wins, 22 losses). In the subsequent three elections, Trump won the battles in those states 80 percent of the time (12 wins, 3 losses). Trump’s success in Ohio and Iowa is particularly remarkable. From 1996 through 2012, on average, both of those states’ results were within about 2 points of the United States’s as a whole; they were among the most centrist of swing states. But during the three Trump elections, on average, Ohio and Iowa were each more than 10 points to the right of the U.S.—a massive shift. In 2024, Trump won each of those states by a larger margin than Harris won Illinois. At this point, Ohio and Iowa are no longer really swing states.
Trump’s gains in Michigan have also been extraordinary. The Wolverine State was 6 points to the left of the nation, on average, from 1996 through 2012. Across Trump’s three elections, by contrast, it was 1.3 points to the right of the nation, on average—a 7.3-point swing. Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, meantime, made similar shifts—from being collectively 2.8 points to the nation’s left, on average, from 1996 through 2012, to being roughly 2 points to its right, on average, in the three Trump elections. Trump also gained ground in uncompetitive states, such as New York, New Jersey, and West Virginia.
On the flip side, Republicans have performed worse in Georgia in the Trump era. The Peach State was 12 points to the U.S.’s right, on average, from 1996 through 2012, and had shown no real signs of movement—it was still 11.7 points to the nation’s right in 2012. The state moved closer to the center in each subsequent election, until 2024, when it was one of only four states (along with Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan) whose result was within one point of the nation’s as a whole. Trump also lost ground in Arizona, though not as much. After it voted 10 points to the nation’s right, on average, in the presidential contests from 1996 through 2012, the Grand Canyon State voted only 4 points to the right in 2024.
At least five states furthered, but didn’t accelerate, their leftward shift with Trump atop the ticket. (They cumulatively moved slightly further left from 2000 to 2012, relative to the country, than they did from 2012 to 2024.) Virginia has moved further to the nation’s left in each of the past seven presidential elections, alongside the federal government’s continued expansion and the resulting surge in lawyers and lobbyists in northern Virginia. On the Pacific Coast, Washington likewise has moved more in Democrats’ direction, relative to the rest of the country, across those seven presidential elections, with Oregon following a similar pattern. Over that same span, Colorado has moved to the left rapidly, while North Carolina has done so gradually.
Then there’s Texas. Democrats have long fantasized of flipping the Lone Star State—a prospect that continues to look like just that, a fantasy. Texas has been more than 10 points to the nation’s right in each of the past eight presidential elections. And while Texas has been closer during the Trump era than during the George W. Bush or Barack Obama years (when it was reliably about 20 points to the country’s right), it was slightly further to the right of the U.S. in 2024 than in 2020 or 2016. In short, the prospects of Democrats flipping Texas (12.2 points to the nation’s right in 2024) look about as likely as Republicans’ prospects of flipping Illinois (12.4 points to the country’s left in 2024).
In sum, among states that either are or were competitive, Republicans have fared better during the Trump years in Florida, Ohio, Iowa, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, states worth a combined 97 electoral votes. They have performed worse in Georgia and Arizona, worth a combined 27 electoral votes. In other current or former competitive states (like Virginia, Colorado, North Carolina, New Hampshire, and Nevada), their prospects remain on roughly the same trajectory as they were before Trump hit the scene.
A month before the election, as John Tierney has noted, Nate Silver agreed to bet $100,000 that Trump wouldn’t win Florida by 8 points. Luckily for Silver, the bet doesn’t seem to have been finalized, given that Trump cleared that threshold easily. At the same time, Harris won California by 20.1 points, way down from Biden’s 29.1-point win there in 2020. While it’s premature to ask whether Florida could eventually become as Republican as California is Democratic, the question is less farfetched than it would have seemed two months ago.
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