Election Day 2024: Here’s Trump’s Clearest Path To Victory—After Winning North Carolina (Updated)
by Sara Dorn · ForbesTopline
Former President Donald Trump won the first swing state called—North Carolina—as early Election Day results indicate his path to winning the presidency appears more secure just after the last polls closed Tuesday.
Key Facts
The Associated Press called North Carolina for Trump around 11:20 p.m. EST Tuesday, with 89% of votes counted, bringing his electoral vote count total to 230, compared to Vice President Kamala Harris’ 192; Trump was ahead in five other battleground states with results still pending in Nevada.
With North Carolina in his column, Trump’s clearest path to victory starts with the other Sun Belt states of Arizona, Nevada and Georgia.
If Trump wins all of the non-swing states he won in 2020, plus those Sun Belt and Southern swing states, he just needs one of the three “blue wall” states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania to surpass the 270-electoral vote threshold needed to win.
According to pre-election polls, Trump is most likely to win Pennsylvania, where he and Harris are tied, which would give him 287 electoral votes—though Trump is ahead in all three “blue wall” states.
While less likely, Trump could also theoretically win if he takes back the three “blue wall” states that he secured in 2020, even if he doesn’t win any other Sun Belt states.
Trump lost to Biden in six of this year’s swing states in 2020, with the exception of North Carolina, and he won six of the seven in 2016, with the exception of Nevada.
Key Background
Trump announced his latest campaign for president nearly two years ago as the GOP’s loyalty to the former president appeared to stand on shaky ground. He declared his third run on the heels of unexpected GOP losses of his preferred candidates in the November 2022 midterms that many in the party blamed Trump for. At the time, some party leaders were still also bewildered—if not publicly outspoken—about their distress over Trump’s role in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riots. Trump sparked more backlash among Republicans when he dined with white supremacist Nick Fuentes and controversial rapper Kanye West at Mar-a-Lago just weeks after announcing his campaign—compounding criticism that seemed as though Trump’s grip over the party may be loosening. But his criminal indictments the following year—first in his Manhattan hush money trial in March 2023, followed by his federal election interference and classified document cases, and his indictment in Fulton County, Georgia, against his efforts to overturn the election in the state—united the party behind Trump as he claimed the cases amounted to election interference designed to prevent him from retaking the White House in 2020. Trump surged ahead in polls following President Joe Biden’s disastrous June debate performance, but he briefly trailed Harris following her entrance into the race, before narrowing the gap nationally and in the seven swing states. Trump tapped Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, as his running mate in July.
Tangent
Trump’s second campaign for office is in many ways a more aggressive version of his first, with ramped up rhetoric against immigration, promises to seek retribution against his political enemies and a continuation of his false claims that he is the true winner of the 2020 election. He’s promised to enact even stricter border policies if elected, including mass arrests and deportations of undocumented migrants. He has floated plans to raise tariffs by 10% across the board and 60% on imports from China, proposals most experts warn could raise prices for consumers as the cost of tariffs would likely be absorbed by some combination of U.S. businesses that import goods, the customers who purchase them and foreign businesses that export them.
Chief Critic
Harris has focused much of her campaign on attacking Trump over his role in Jan. 6 and his incendiary rhetoric against his political adversaries, warning in what she dubbed her “closing argument” last week in Washington that Trump is “unstable, obsessed with revenge, consumed with grievance and out for unchecked power.” Her campaign has also sought to cast Trump’s increased penchant for rambling rants and wild behavior on stage as signs that he’s exhausted and his mental acuity has slipped, pointing to the 30 minutes Trump spent dancing on stage to music during a rally in Pennsylvania last month and his refusal to release his medical records.
Further Reading
Trump Vs. Harris 2024 Polls: Harris Up By Razor-Thin 1 Point In Final Forbes/HarrisX Survey (Forbes)
Can Trump And Harris Tie In Tomorrow’s Election? It’s Possible—Here’s What Would Happen (Forbes)
Here’s When We’ll Know The Trump-Harris Election Results In Must-Win Swing States (Forbes)