Mapping 8 Paths To Victory For Harris And Trump In The 2024 Election

By Lenny Bronner and Nick Mourtoupalas – all images and graphs by Washington Post

With less than 50 days until Election Day, it’s trite to say that it looks like it’s going to be close. But it actually does look that way.

According to The Washington Post’s polling average, neither Vice President Kamala Harris nor former president Donald Trump is clearly favored in enough states to get to the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency. Harris is ahead in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Nevada, while Trump leads in Georgia and Arizona. North Carolina is tied.

But with the help of our polling averages, we’ve identified five likely paths to the White House based on Harris and Trump’s standing in the polls. We’ve also identified three less likely paths, including a tie in the electoral college. (These paths are not as likely as the five others, but they are still worth acknowledging, given how close this election is.)

Remember these scenarios are based on current polling, so if there is big movement in the polls between now and Election Day, their likelihood might change. Our scenarios are ordered roughly from most likely to least likely, but don’t read too much into it. At this point, it’s equally likely that Harris or Trump wins the presidency.

Harris wins the Rust Belt — exactly 270 electoral votes

At the moment, Harris is ahead in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, according to our polling averages, so this is her most straightforward path to the presidency. The electoral map is changing, and the importance of these states might fade, but for now, these “blue wall” or “Rust Belt” states — especially Pennsylvania — are crucial to either candidate’s path to victory.

How this happens: There are two factors working in Harris’s favor. First, compared to elsewhere in the country, Democrats are stronger here among White voters without a college degree. That’s largely thanks to the long history of unions in the region and the fact that religion isn’t as important to these voters. Case in point: In 2020, Democrats lost White voters without a college degree by 32 percentage points in Pennsylvania compared to 47 points in Texas.

Second, there is a higher share of Black voters here than in other parts of the Midwest (Pennsylvania technically isn’t part of the Midwest, but it is part of the Rust Belt), and Black voters are a core constituency of the Democratic Party. In 2020, they made up roughly 20 percent of Joe Biden’s voters.

Pitfalls: Betting the entire presidency on this path would be a risky move for Democrats. If Harris wins all the non-swing states that Biden won in 2020 and only these three Rust Belt states, it would put her at exactly 270 electoral votes — the minimum necessary to win. One misstep, including losing Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District, could cost her the presidency, but more on that later.

Trump wins exactly 270 electoral votes

We just described how Harris could win the presidency with exactly 270 electoral votes. Trump also has his own path to exactly 270: Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia.

How this happens: Polling underscores how this path could work for Trump. He is currently ahead in Georgia and although North Carolina shows a tie, it’s easy to imagine Trump winning it as he did in 2016 and 2020. The state that is more of a stretch in this scenario is Pennsylvania, as he is currently polling behind Harris. But our average gives Harris only a small lead, and some polls, including The Post’s most recent poll of the state, show a tie.

To pull this off, Trump would need to do well in the suburbs, improving on his 2020 performance. He won 49 percent of the vote compared to Biden’s 50 percent in the seven battleground states’ suburban counties. In the urban areas of these states, he also would need to improve — or at least hold — his margins. And finally, he would need to either maintain his vote share in the rural parts of these states or continue to build upon them, something he was not able to do between 2016 and 2020.

Pitfalls: Similar to Harris’s path to 270, it’s a risky strategy with no room for error. This scenario could also come down to a House district. In this case, Maine’s 2nd Congressional District, which is swingy, although Trump won it in 2016 and 2020.

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