Who Has the Electoral College Advantage Now?

A short trip through the political geography

270-to-win’s latest map of the presidential election battlegrounds

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Right before President Biden dropped out of the race, I wrote a post about his chances that, as part of my argument, pointed out that while former President Donald Trump was clearly leading, it wasn’t clear that he still held on to his Electoral College advantage. Since Vice President Kamala Harris became the nominee, the general assumption—confirmed by most polling—has been that Trump does still have that advantage, or has it once again. But today’s New York Times/Philadelphia Inquirer/Sienna College polls of Pennsylvania and of the nation as a whole have raised the question again. How could Harris actually be ahead in Pennsylvania but tied nationally?

Nate Cohn does a good job of making the case that this isn’t just one fluky poll; a variety of polls from “higher-quality” pollsters have shown a similar advantage for Harris in Northern battleground states relative to her position nationally, even as “lower-quality” pollsters have shown the opposite. If the “higher-quality” polls are right, then Trump’s Electoral College advantage has evaporated or even gone negative; if the “lower-quality” pollsters are right, then we’re still in the world of 2016-2020. Cohn promised a future piece explaining what about the political geography might be driving the split either way. I’m going to try to get out ahead of him by giving my explanation here. I’ll be curious to see whether we wind up agreeing.

The first thing to remember is that the Republicans do not have some inherent advantage in the Electoral College. In fact, Barack Obama had a substantial advantage in both of his elections, though not as large an advantage as Trump has had. In 2008, Obama won the national popular vote by 7.2%, but he won the tipping point state (Colorado) by nearly 9%. And in 2012, he won the national popular vote by 3.9%, and the tipping point state (again Colorado) by 5.4%. Obama’s advantage didn’t matter because he won both elections decisively in both the popular vote and the Electoral College, but it’s notable nonetheless that these things do move around.

Indeed, they can even move around with the same candidate on the ballot. In 2000, George W. Bush had a slight Electoral College advantage; he lost the national popular vote by 0.5% but the tipping point state (Florida, of course) was essentially a tie. But in his reelection effort, he was at a slight Electoral College disadvantage; he won the national popular vote by 2.4% (the only time a Republican has done so in the past 35 years), but he won the tipping point state (Ohio) by only 2.1%. Bill Clinton, meanwhile, went from a small Electoral College disadvantage in 1992, winning the national popular vote by 5.6% and the tipping point state (Tennessee) by 4.7%, to a small advantage in 1996, when he won the national popular vote by 8.5% and the tipping point state (Pennsylvania) by 9.2%.

What drives these changes is a shift in political geography, differences in how efficiently each party’s voters are distributed. Obama, for example, was both a Midwesterner and the first Black major party candidate for president. Understandably, Black turnout was higher than in previous elections, and went by overwhelming margins for Obama—but Obama also performed well among Midwestern White voters. The combination propelled him to decisive victories in states like Michigan, but also resulted in him winning Iowa, for example, by strong margins both times and even winning heavily Republican Indiana in 2008. Obama also did exceptionally well relative to previous Democratic nominees at winning college-educated voters, a shift which pushed states like Colorado and Virginia into the Democratic column, where they have stayed ever since. (Obama’s strength in this demographic group, if not in others, was a harbinger of the future.)

Obama did poorly, though, among White voters in parts of the country where the White vote is racially polarized to a high degree—more poorly than a typical Democrat relative to his overall performance. So, even though he vastly exceeded John Kerry’s national numbers, Obama barely outperformed Kerry or even did slightly worse than him in states like Louisiana, Arkansas, Kentucky and Tennessee in both 2008 and 2012. Since these states were already solidly Republican in a presidential contest, John McCain’s and Mitt Romney’s relatively strong performance didn’t help them at all. As a result of all of these shifts put together, Obama had a significant advantage in the Electoral College.

In 2016, the Electoral College advantage swung dramatically in Donald Trump’s way. What political geography underlay that shift? On the one hand, Trump gained huge margins among non-college-educated White voters. These voters are plentiful both in the Midwest and the South, but in the Midwest at least these voters had inclined mostly toward the Democrats until 2016. By winning these voters, Trump moved Iowa and Ohio decisively into the Republican column, and they also allowed him to squeak out wins in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. On the other hand, Trump did notably poorly among both college-educated voters and non-White voters, which pushed up Democratic vote totals in states like Texas, New York and California. But Texas remained Republican enough that the increased Democratic vote share didn’t matter, while New York and California were already so solidly Democratic that Hillary Clinton’s strong performance there relative to her national popular vote total didn’t help. The net result of all of these shifts is that Trump had a decisive Electoral College advantage, enough to make up for losing the popular vote by nearly as much as Bush won it by in 2004.

Trump’s geography changed a bit in 2020, gaining significant ground with Hispanic voters and losing even more ground with college-educated White voters (including college-educated Evangelical Christian voters), but its overall shape was similar. The result was a narrow win in the tipping point state for Biden on the back of a very solid popular vote victory—which is to say, a significant expansion of Trump’s Electoral College advantage. Some of that expansion, though, may simply be due to the preexisting political geography combined with record turnout, combined with the unique oddities of an election conducted during a pandemic. It feels significant to me, for example, that the total vote in states won by Democrats in both 2016 and 2020 grew by 16.5% whereas the total vote in states won by Trump in both elections grew by only 15.1%. (The total vote in the five states that switched parties increased by nearly 17.0%.)

So what is driving the political geography in 2024?

On the one hand, Harris is a non-White candidate, having both Black and South Asian heritage. That may help her with non-White voters, though the evidence that it is doing so is mixed at best. It may also hurt her with White voters whose voting patterns reflect high racial polarization—but in Obama’s elections, this mostly resulted in “wasted” Republican votes in uncompetitive states. If that pattern from 2008 and 2012 repeats in 2024, it would hurt Harris with the popular vote, but not with the Electoral College.

On the other hand, Harris has continued to extend the Democratic advantage among college-educated voters, and continues to languish among non-college-educated voters. That differential played strongly to Trump’s advantage in the Midwest in 2016 and 2020—which suggests he would retain his Electoral College advantage from those yours. But it’s also an area where relative enthusiasm may play to Harris’s advantage, since non-college-educated voters vote with far less regularity than college-educated voters. Relatedly, the abortion issue has redounded significantly to the GOP’s disadvantage in states whose electorates are not dominated by White Evangelical Christians—Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin being prime examples. On yet a third hand, though, Trump significantly outperformed his polls in both elections in the Midwest specifically, and in Wisconsin in particular, a fact frequently attributed to his unique appeal to these infrequent voters.

Finally, both candidates have Midwestern running mates, but I doubt either will significant sway Midwestern voters, in part because I don’t think running mates matter that much for geography (they may matter more in terms of how the choice informs voters about the character and priorities of the nominee), but in part because Senator J. D. Vance is not terribly popular in Ohio and is positioned well to the right of that state’s median voter, while Governor Tim Walz is from Minnesota, a state that is more liberal than most Midwestern states, and has governed from a position to the left of that state’s median.

I can see arguments, in other words, why the balance in what is most likely still the decisive region might have shifted toward the Democrats more than the country as a whole—which would reduce Trump’s Electoral College advantage—or why it might still look like it did in the last two elections. But there are two novel geographic factors elsewhere that may shape the popular vote/Electoral College split that weren’t significant in 2020 or 2016.

The first is a potential source of “wasted” Trump votes: the Northeast, particularly New York. Democrats in competitive races outperformed the party’s aggregate national numbers in the 2022 elections for the House of Representatives, but a notable exception to that trend was New York. Since then, discontent among New Yorkers with the state of the Democratic Party has only grown. New York’s governor, Kathy Hochul, is widely regarded as weak and ineffectual; New York City’s mayor, Eric Adams, meanwhile, is widely regarded as disengaged and is surrounded by scandal. It does not strike me as at all unlikely that New York’s voters, fed up with the performance of the Democratic Party at a state and local level, might take out their frustration on Harris. Nor would I be surprised if a similar pattern obtained across the river in New Jersey, which is has its own prominent scandal-ridden Democrat. Trump isn’t going to win either state except in an almost inconceivable landslide though, so if he does gain significantly, those votes would be “wasted” in Electoral College terms.

Isn’t Pennsylvania also a Northeastern state though? Well, sort of. Philadelphia is certainly a Northeastern city—but Pittsburgh is a Midwestern city, and the rural middle of the state has a lot in common with Appalachia. Pennsylvania has a lot of problems, but it isn’t the poster child for blue state malaise that New York is. More to the point, Pennsylvania is currently governed by a Democrat who is distinctly popular, while the Pennsylvania GOP has demonstrated a penchant for nominating unpopular cranks who don’t even live in the state. While their favorite son didn’t make the ticket, I don’t believe there’s a local reason for Pennsylvania voters to be looking to punish Democrats the way there is in New York.

The other factor is California. Donald Trump has made inroads with key groups in California—he’s got the support of a number of high-profile tech billionaires, and he dramatically improved his margins among Hispanic voters in 2020. And blue state malaise is unquestionably a factor on California voters’ minds. But Harris is a native daughter and the state’s former Attorney General and Senator. Because of her high profile and deep connections in the state, Harris should be in a better position than most candidates would be to reverse Trump’s 2020 gains, even if she barely campaigns in the state—but whatever happens in California, it’s irrelevant to the outcome of the presidential election. It isn’t irrelevant to other elections—Democratic chances of retaking the House of Representatives depend greatly on the outcome in marginal races in California (and also in New York)—but at the presidential level it’s irrelevant because California is going to be won by Harris regardless of the margin. But because of California’s enormous size, any shift still could prove decisive in terms of who appears to have an advantage in the Electoral College.

What all of that means is that the ultimate split between the Electoral College and the popular vote is likely to be determined by voters whose votes will not affect the outcome of the presidential race. Whether Harris does better than expected in Pennsylvania, for example, will matter far less to the size of that advantage than the margins in California and New York (and Texas). Indeed, even if the margins don’t change, California could have a profound influence on the size of an Electoral College advantage. California’s turnout in 2020 surged by over 23%—far above the national average (15.9%), to say nothing of the median state (Pennsylvania, 12.5%). If the margin in California in 2024 is identical to 2020, but turnout is depressed relative to the national average instead of exceeding it, that alone would swing the Electoral College advantage meaningfully away from Trump and towards Harris. But it would have no impact on the presidential race—and it might not have any impact on the race for the House either.

All of which is to say: the so-called Electoral College advantage isn’t an “advantage” at all. It doesn’t necessarily reflect a tilted playing field because neither campaign is playing on that field; indeed, it’s substantially an artifact of trends that the campaigns are largely ignoring. If the national popular vote mattered, both campaigns would behave differently, and the political geography itself would change in consequence. But it doesn’t, and they aren’t. Whether it “favors” Trump or Harris this time is irrelevant, because either way the actual shape of the contest is the same.