Minimum Popular Vote Percentage Necessary for Democrats to Win in 2024

[Progressive Pessimist]

So, when all the votes are counted for the 2020 election Biden may end up winning the popular vote by 4.5% or so, and won the electoral vote with 306 electors. With that in mind, what would be the minimum that he, or another Democrat, would need to win again in 2024?

[Bootes Void]

id say 4% for now to be on the safe side.

[Skill and Chance]

Could be anything between 1% and 5% depending on whether Georgia and Arizona keep moving left. 

[Catalyst138]

A uniform 0.6% swing would flip this election over to Trump, so it was close to 4% in this case. I’m going with 4%.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

Going with 4% right now but if/when Abrams wins GA Gov in an R-favoring year it'll probably drop to 2.5%-3.5%

[Bickle]

Republicans should be more worried about the fact that Biden won the same amount of EC's as Trump 4 years ago despite winning 5 less states.  If Democrats get a permanent hold of the right states, Republicans will be lock out of the presidency for good.

[Stuart98]

Gonna go with the low end on this poll. Trump's advantage stemmed from his ability to create a very particular coalition of voters that I'm unconvinced anyone else from the GOP will be able to create. I'm not saying we'll revert to 2012 coalitions or anything, but I think the base of the GOP nominee in 2024 will be a bit less optimized for the electoral college than Trump's.

[TheReckoning]

Could be even lower than the lowest option.

NPV favored Democrats 2004, 2008, and 2012. No reason to think it can’t in the future.

[NewYorkExpress]

Somewhere between 6-10% if we can't carry Texas/Florida.

If we do win one or both of Texas and Florida, Democrats don't to need win the popular vote.

[EastwoodS]

Gonna go with the low end on this poll. Trump's advantage stemmed from his ability to create a very particular coalition of voters that I'm unconvinced anyone else from the GOP will be able to create. I'm not saying we'll revert to 2012 coalitions or anything, but I think the base of the GOP nominee in 2024 will be a bit less optimized for the electoral college than Trump's.

Why should we believe the Democrat coalition will hold; we’ve already come to a consensus on This forum that they are A.) The weaker coalition and B.) they only showed up to remove Trump.

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

A depressingly high amount.

Democracy!

[Chips]

3.5%.

[Person Man]

Somewhere between 6-10% if we can't carry Texas/Florida.

If we do win one or both of Texas and Florida, Democrats don't to need win the popular vote.

This is a bit extreme, but yes. The ends justify the means in this states.

But with Trump off the ticket, I think the silver lining Democrats will be talking about, in one potential timeline, is how Harris got to 250 EVs by only winning by a million votes.

[ProgressiveModerate]

They "could" realistically only win the PV by 0-1% and still win the EC, though it seems more likely the tipping point will be closer to 3% to the right of the nation; really depends upon whether the big 3 stall or take an even bigger rightwards shift.

[ElectionsGuy]

It'll be even larger.

Texas and Florida will gain 5 EVs together. The number for 2020 appears to have been 4%. The minimum will continue being about 3% but the necessity may be up to 5-6%.

[MATTROSE94]

Probably by about 6% if I had to guess.

[Person Man]

At what point with Freedom House classify the United States as a "Hybrid Regime" instead of a "Flawe Democracy"?

[ProgressiveModerate]

I really don't understand people who say Democrats NEED to win the NPV by 6% to win the Presidency. In an extreme scenario, it could technically be possible, but if Republicans continue to gain with WWC in rural areas swinging the rust belt further right while making up ground with minorities and suburban people, then they're probably not losing the NPV by 7% anyways. In other words, if they gain voters, it's not going to specifically be concentrated in safe states; we'll also see gains in safe states where those votes won't affect the final outcome. The only case where I could see a 7-8% PV-EC split would be if post Trump the heartland has depressed turnout but they have a good ground game in specific swing states to turn out the votes they need, or for MI, WI, PA to continue their rightward trends while keeping NC and FL stagnant with Democrats holding AZ and GA and TX coming very close to flipping but not quite, but again, that's a very fine needle to thread.


Just a reminder that because something is possible doesn't mean it's bound to happen.

[Del Tachi]

11

[Skill and Chance]

As someone else pointed out, the 2022 gov/sen elections in GA and AZ will be important for predicting this.  If Democrats can win statewide in a Biden midterm in those states, they could vote left of the tipping point in 2024.  This winning map would become viable with a substantially lower PV margin than Biden's (remember, Michigan trended D this year):

That's 276D/262R.  It will be closer after reapportionment and possible gerrymandering of NE-02, but there are 6 EV to spare so it would still be a Dem win in the worst case.

[cwh2018]

I think 2024 and 2028 appear to be very difficult elections for the democrats to win the presidency.
They could be caught between two stools as the rust belt may trend further away and certain parts of the sunbelt such as Nevada and Florida have become trickier while North Carolina is not a state dems want to have to win.

Most observers agreed that the rust belt was the easiest way to the presidency in 2020, but all 3 states voted clearly to the right of the nation, with a much smaller swing back than predicted with very narrow wins in each with a candidate specifically chosen to appeal to these voters.

I think it is genuinely up for debate over the sunbelt or rustbelt and which is the easier path in 2024,especially if Biden does not run.  I don't see democrats being able to win Texas in 2024 or 2028 in a toss-up election and Florida is becoming worrisome meaning the democrats are walking a tight rope to get over 270 and Arizona and Georgia may be must win states for democrats with Pennsylvania.

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

It's too soon to tell. Who would have guessed in December 2012, after the EC favoring Democrats in 2004 (yes kids, it favored Kerry even though he lost; a 2.1% uniform swing gives him OH, IA, and NM and he still loses the PV by 0.4%), 2008, and 2012, that 2016 would be 2000 But More?

[Progressive Pessimist]

Gonna go with the low end on this poll. Trump's advantage stemmed from his ability to create a very particular coalition of voters that I'm unconvinced anyone else from the GOP will be able to create. I'm not saying we'll revert to 2012 coalitions or anything, but I think the base of the GOP nominee in 2024 will be a bit less optimized for the electoral college than Trump's.

I actually agree. I just can't see how a more conventional, mainstream, or even simply non-Trump presidential candidate manages to recreate everything he did, especially when accounting for this year's gargantuan turnout. That's not to say that they can't win, but the 2020 environment isn't going to be static for the next four years.

[The Houstonian]

It could conceivably be negative under the right circumstances.

[MillennialModerate]

An abusurd amount. If GA keeps going left: 4%. If Georgia reverts then 6% which is criminal