What is the margin where you would start to favor one over the other in either direction?
It isn’t Florida.
It is North Carolina.
A part of why I predict a 2024 Republican pickup for U.S. President, for Donald Trump, is that none of the 2020 Republican-carried states are in a feasible position to switch to the 2024 Democratic column for re-electing Joe Biden.
2016 Republican presidential pickup winner Donald Trump and 2020 Democratic presidential pickup winner Joe Biden have in common their original electoral-vote score is 306. What they also have in common is having carried just two states beyond their tipping point. Their Tipping-Point State was Wisconsin. For Trump, who carried 30 states, the Badger State was his No. 28 state. Following it were additional pickups of Pennsylvania and Michigan. For Biden, also with the same state as his No. 23 best and the Tipping-Point State, and with 25 carried states, the following two slots were pickups of Arizona and Georgia.
2024 Biden is in the same position as 2020 Trump for the electoral map. He has to flip a state. Since no electoral map has been duplicated, and that at least something on the 2020 map will switch color here in 2024, there is nothing positive happening for Biden.
North Carolina is blocking Biden. Although not carried, North Carolina was Biden’s next state, his No. 26 best state, in 2020. Without it, the color switching from 2020 to 2024 does not go from red to blue but from blue to red.
Biden’s job approval, a constant struggle for 40 percent, tells us what will likely play out.