Handicappers Predict Another ‘Close and Competitive’ Presidential Election Next Year

The handicappers at Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics on Thursday released their first Electoral College ratings for 2024 and, in their assessment, the presidential contest is anyone’s game.An editor of the Crystal Ball, Kyle Kondik, writes that “our best guess is yet another close and competitive presidential election next year — which, if it happened, would be the sixth such instance in seven elections (with 2008 as the only real outlier).”In the assessment of the editors, there are only four true “toss-up” states at this juncture, Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin, and Georgia, which account for a total of 43 electoral votes.Other competitive arenas include North Carolina and Maine’s Second Congressional District, both of which lean Republican, and Michigan, Pennsylvania, and New Hampshire, which lean toward the Democrats at this point in the game.Based on their current ratings, Democrats have the advantage in states worth 260 electoral votes while Republicans have the advantage in states worth 235 electoral votes.This means that Democrats could win the Electoral College if they win the state’s they have an advantage in any toss-up state except Nevada. Republicans would need to win at least three of the toss-ups to prevail.Mr. Kondik also writes that, for the purposes of the rating, “we are considering a rematch of the 2020 election — Joe Biden versus Donald Trump — as the likeliest matchup, but not one that is set in stone.”In the Democratic primaries, the editors of the Crystal Ball said Mr. Biden “does not have credible opposition within his own party.” Currently, attorney Robert Kennedy Jr. is consistently polling in second place behind Mr. Biden and activist Marianne Williamson is polling in third.A recent Beacon Research and Fox News poll found Mr. Biden leading Mr. Kennedy by 64 percent to 17 percent. Ms. Williams carried the support of 10 percent of respondents.On the Republican side, the editors are leery of discounting President Trump due to his legal troubles, writing that “we would never presume an actual guilty verdict in this or another case until it actually happens — nor are we even sure a guilty verdict would prevent Trump’s renomination.”As the Sun reports, Mr. Trump’s commanding lead in the Republican Party’s primary only seems to have grown as his legal troubles have mounted. Following Mr. Trump’s first indictment in late March, he led 46 percent to 26 percent nationally, according to FiveThirtyEight’s average of polls. As of Thursday, that lead had grown to 52.5 percent to 23.5 percent.As it stands, though, the Crystal Ball ratings are based more on Messers. Biden and Trump’s historical performance and lessons from the 2022 midterms, rather than early polling.These predictions are also not taking any third party challengers seriously at the moment, though Mr. Kondik writes that “one could imagine the third party vote, whatever size it is, hurting the Democratic nominee more than the GOP nominee.”In a rematch between Messrs. Biden and Trump, the editors of the Crystal Ball expect Mr. Biden to overperform his lackluster polling in part due to Mr. Trump’s legal baggage, including his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.“The last time Trump was on the general election ballot was prior to the Jan. 6, 2021 storming of the Capitol,” Mr. Kondik writes. “We just saw that in the 2022 election, several candidates who were tied to Trump running in key states … underperformed the electoral environment.”

Handicappers Predict Another ‘Close and Competitive’ Presidential Election Next Year

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