One possible presidential election scenario, created during the afternoon of Tuesday, November 5, 2024 from the web site 270toWin.com, before any election results were publicly known. Screenshot.
I’ve looked at every poll and every announced trend from the past several days, and I’m not going to pretend that I can make sense of it.
There is so much conflicting data, and the election is (apparently) so close, I don’t see how to confidently predict any outcome in the presidential race between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris.
But one possible outcome fascinates me. So I pass it along here, as something to look for tonight as the election returns come in.
First some background. We’ve been told for months that the 2024 presidential election come down to seven battleground states that could go either way: Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, and Nevada.
Iowa isn’t one of those, but a surprising poll from a well-regarded pollster this past weekend has Kamala Harris up 3 points in Iowa. Is it an outlier? Or is it a harbinger?
For now, let’s throw Iowa into the mix and say there are actually eight battleground states.
Here’s a possible scenario:
Donald Trump wins Georgia and North Carolina, where he is supposedly leading slightly.
Kamala Harris wins Michigan and Wisconsin, where she is supposedly leading slightly.
Kamala wins Nevada, where she is leading slightly. She also wins Arizona, where Trump is leading slightly.
Trump wins Iowa, where every poll except this last one has had him up all year.
In this scenario, it all comes to down to Pennsylvania, where according to an average of polls Trump has a lead of less than 1 percentage point.
If Trump wins Pennsylvania, he would have 270 electoral votes – a bare majority, and the smallest number needed to win – while Kamala would have 268 electoral votes.
An interesting fact: In this scenario, Pennsylvania’s 19 electoral votes are more important than Arizona’s 11 and Nevada’s 6 combined. That’s mathematically true – 19 is higher than 17 – but it’s also true in terms of who gets elected president. If Trump wins Pennsylvania in this scenario, he doesn’t need Arizona and Nevada. If he wins Arizona and Nevada but loses Pennsylvania, those two states wouldn’t do it for him – he’d lose the election 268 to 270.
This is why many observers say it all comes down to Pennsylvania.
Now, as election watchers know, it might not come down to Pennsylvania or any other state. Maybe all seven (or eight) battleground states will break for one candidate or the other. Or maybe one candidate will get five or six of the biggies and walk away with the Electoral College.
Another possible scenario: Trump could lose Pennsylvania (19 electoral votes) if he wins both Michigan (15 electoral votes) and Wisconsin (10 electoral votes). But that would mean losing a state where he’s up and winning two states where he’s down, among three comparable states that have voted the same way in every presidential election since 1992.
Seems more likely he’d win Pennsylvania if he’s going to win the election.
What If They Tie?
For those of you thinking about a tie …
It’s possible, but it seems unlikely. One way to get to 269-269 is if the above scenario (Trump wins Pennsylvania-North Carolina-Georgia-Iowa, loses Michigan-Wisconsin-Arizona-Nevada) occurs and Trump also loses the Second Congressional District in central and northern Maine.
Maine gives two of its four electoral votes to the overall winner in the state, and gives one electoral vote to the winner of each of its two congressional districts. Harris is way up in the state’s First Congressional District in southern Maine, which is why she’ll win the state overall. So she’ll get the two votes for winning the state plus an additional electoral vote for winning the state’s southern congressional district.
But Trump is favored to win a single electoral vote from Maine by winning the Second Congressional District in central and northern Maine, which he won in 2016 and 2020. Still, he could theoretically lose it – a poll in October 2024 had him up by only 5 points. If he does, and if the split above plays out, the two candidates would tie, 269-269.
As unlikely as this seems, let’s play along.
What happens if the two candidates tie?
The Twelfth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution says the U.S. House of Representatives would choose the new president, but not in a simple every-member-votes sort of way. Instead, members of each state’s delegation would vote for either Trump or Kamala, with the majority carrying the state. (The Twelfth Amendment says “a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice.”)
This is how the election of 1824 was decided, though it was more complicated because there were three major candidates – Andrew Jackson (the plurality winner), William Crawford (the third-place finisher), and John Quincy Adams (the guy who cut a deal with Henry Clay, the fourth-place finisher and Speaker of the House, and walked away with a majority of the state delegations and the presidency).
In January 2025, which is when the vote would take place, the scenarios would be simpler, because only two candidates would have a chance to win.
One of the two candidates would need at least 26 of the 50 state delegations in order to win the presidency.
How would that vote go?
We don’t know. It’s partly depends on how the U.S. House of Representatives elections go. The breakdown by party of various state delegations could change.
There’s also nothing in the federal constitution that says a member of the U.S. House has to vote for the nominee of his political party. But that does seem the most likely outcome.
And since we’re exploring unlikely what-if scenarios …
The current breakdown of delegations of members of the U.S. House of Representatives by state favors Trump, 26 states to 22 states, with 2 states tied.
Here it is:
Republican Majority Within State Delegation of U.S. Representatives
1. Alabama (6-1)
2. Arizona (6-3)
3. Arkansas (4-0)
4. Florida (20-8)
5. Georgia (9-5)
6. Idaho (2-0)
7. Indiana (7-2)
8. Iowa (4-0)
9. Kansas (3-1)
10. Kentucky (5-1)
11. Louisiana (5-1)
12. Mississippi (3-1)
13. Missouri (6-2)
14. Montana (2-0)
15. Nebraska (3-0)
16. North Dakota (1-0)
17. Ohio (10-5)
18. Oklahoma (5-0)
19. South Carolina (6-1)
20. South Dakota (1-0)
21. Tennessee (8-1)
22. Texas (25-12, one vacancy)
23. Utah (4-0)
24. West Virginia (2-0)
25. Wisconsin (5-2, one vacancy)
26. Wyoming (1-0)
Democratic Majority Within State Delegation of U.S. Representatives
1. Alaska (1-0)
2. California (40-12)
3. Colorado (5-3)
4. Connecticut (5-0)
5. Delaware (1-0)
6. Hawaii (2-0)
7. Illinois (14-3)
8. Maine (2-0)
9. Maryland (7-1)
10. Massachusetts (9-0)
11. Michigan (7-6)
12. Nevada (3-1)
13. New Hampshire (2-0)
14. New Jersey (8-3, one vacancy)
15. New Mexico (3-0)
16. New York (16-10)
17. Oregon (4-2)
18. Pennsylvania (9-8)
19. Rhode Island (2-0)
20. Vermont (1-0)
21. Virginia (6-5)
22. Washington (8-2)
Tied Between Parties
1. Minnesota (4-4)
2. North Carolina (7-7)
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One possible presidential election scenario, created during the afternoon of Tuesday, November 5, 2024 from the web site 270toWin.com, before any election results were publicly known. Screenshot. 
