Many people are already looking ahead to the 2024 Presidential Election to try and speculate on what we might see after Biden’s first term. There are many unanswered questions in the world of politics right now and we are going to name just a couple of them.
Will Joe Biden run for re-election at the age of 82? Will Donald Trump return to politics and run for a second term in 2024? Will stricter voting laws be enacted to promote security? These are all very important questions that will eventually be answered but they don’t exactly provide the details as to why the 2024 election will be so different.
As the population changes, so does the electoral map and the number of electoral votes that are required to be cast by each state. There are a ton of electoral value changes that will be relevant in the 2024 election. The population is rapidly growing in several states and with that growth comes an increase in electoral votes. Here is a list of states that are projected to see an increase in electoral votes when compared to the 2020 election.
List of States with Projected Increases in Electoral Votes
- Texas (+3)
- Florida (+2)
- Arizona (+1)
- North Carolina (+1)
- Colorado (+1)
- Oregon (+1)
- Montana (+1)
As you may have noticed, many of these states learn in favor of the Republican Party which means the 2024 election will shift in favor of the Republican Party by just a little bit. We also have to take into account the states that are losing electoral votes due to a slight decrease in the population when compared to the rest of the nation. Here is a list of those states as well.
List of States with Projected Decreases in Electoral Votes
- California (-1)
- Minnesota (-1)
- Ohio (-1)
- Illinois (-1)
- Michigan (-1)
- West Virginia (-1)
- Alabama (-1)
- Pennsylvania (-1)
- New York (-1)
- Rhode Island (-1)
If you base this off of the 2020 election results, Democrats are facing a difficult challenge in this category with a net loss in these states in terms of the nationwide electoral college. This will certainly make it a little bit easier for the Republican Party to win the election if they can lock down their traditional red-leaning states. Only time will tell if the electoral college has as much of an impact as it appears in the 2024 election but these early projections certainly make it look like the next presidential election will be very different.
In addition to the electoral differences, there are also going to be differences in the way that people vote. The pandemic will likely be completely over by November of 2024, which means that a significant decrease in mail-in voting will likely take place. Republicans are currently pushing a nationwide effort to increase voter security which could also create trouble for democratic turnout.
There’s no doubt that the 2024 election will be very different for many different reasons. But it’s also entirely possible that it could be a rematch between former President Trump and President Biden, and that would ironically make the 2024 election seem like a reflection of what we’ve just witnessed a few months ago.