The NPR Politics Podcast - Sneak Peek: NPR's Electoral College Map Analysis

Episode Date: April 22, 2024

The 2024 presidential race will come down to two key regions: the industrial Midwest and the Sun Belt, The number of white voters without a college degree is dwindling as a share of the total electorate, but can Trump's inroads with voters of color help him to make up the ground he needs to defeat President Biden?This episode: senior White House correspondent Tamara Keith, political correspondent Danielle Kurtzleben, and senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro.This podcast was produced by Kelli Wessinger and Casey Morell. Our editor is Eric McDaniel. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi. Listen to every episode of the NPR Politics Podcast sponsor-free, unlock access to bonus episodes with more from the NPR Politics team, and support public media when you sign up for The NPR Politics Podcast+ at plus.npr.org/politics.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hi, this is Jessica from Council Bluffs, Iowa. I just visited my first ever Sheetz in Pittsburgh, PA after an inspiring day touring Falling Water by Frank Lloyd Wright. This podcast was recorded at 12.34 p.m. on Monday, April 22nd. Things may have changed by the time you hear this, but I will have checked off one, okay, two things from my bucket list. You and Joe Biden visited Sheetz and Wawa. Falling water is beautiful, though.

Such an Iowan. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Danielle Kurtzleben. I cover the presidential campaign. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. We have a little bit more than six months to go before the election. And to better understand the landscape of the presidential race, we're going to walk through our first electoral vote map of the cycle. And podcast listeners, you are hearing about this first. Domenico, your story will go up on NPR.org tomorrow, and it focuses on the states that are expected to be most competitive in November. And some basic math here, the candidates have to get to at least 270 electoral votes to win. That's a majority of the 538 total available.

So tell us about your map. Yeah, I mean, there aren't any huge surprises in the states that we'll be looking at and focusing on pretty heavily, but they are the ones that we've been talking about in these two sort of buckets, the blue wall states of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, and the Sunbelt states in Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, and to a little bit of a lesser degree, North Carolina. But essentially, those seven states are going to get billions of dollars in advertising, almost all of the focus for organizers, with a few exceptions here and there. But it really is a shrunken map if you consider where we were, say, 20 years ago. So let's start in the Midwest. And Domenico, you mentioned the Blue Wall. Remind us, what is the Blue Wall? Well, the Blue Wall is composed of three states, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan. And it's

sort of gotten this name within politics because if Democrats were to win in those places, traditionally, that they would win the election because it would be enough to get them to 270, half of the 538 that's needed, and would essentially insulate them from, you know, a push by Republicans almost anywhere else. OK, so what is your analysis telling you about those states and how competitive they are, whether they will be a wall or could be a wall, or whether the wall has crumbled? Well, the wall crumbled in 2016, and that's why Democrats are spending a lot of money right now to try to rebuild that wall. Biden won, remember, in 2020

in all three of those states and sort of rebuilt it back, but has been struggling. His approval ratings have been low. He's been lagging with some key groups in these areas, young voters, black voters, younger black voters in particular in a state like Michigan. And that's why you've seen the Biden campaign spending as much money as they are, some $4 million right now in each Michigan and Pennsylvania, trying to win back the groups that already voted for him. Remember, Biden won with 51% of the vote overall. And his big task here is to get those same people who voted for him to vote for him again. And Danielle, you cover the Trump campaign. It certainly looks like he is really trying to compete in those states, really trying to speak to non-college working class voters,

even trying to win over union voters who in theory would be more Democratic, but aren't necessarily a lock for Democrats. Right. Yes. And you hear this in some of the campaign's rhetoric and some of other Republicans' rhetoric. We do know that Republicans have been talking about trying to win young voters, specifically young men. And we just got some new data last week from the Harvard Youth Poll. This showed that President Biden's lead among young men is six points, whereas among young women, his lead is 33 points. Now, yes, he does have that small lead among young men, but the point that I'm making here is that that is not a big lead, especially for young voters who tend to be heavily Democratic in presidential elections. So that does potentially

indicate that Republicans have made and maybe can still make some more inroads, especially among young men. Also, we should add here that those three states we're talking about here with the blue wall, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, are three states that really do have a fair bit of their economies wrapped up in manufacturing, in goods producing industries. And Trump really, really is making a push on manufacturing policy, specifically by talking about tariffs, imposing tariffs on China, making sure that cheap Chinese goods are not making their way into the U.S. through Mexico. And we have seen Biden try to hit back on that. Again, that is another issue where a candidate can also be really very much reaching out to working age male voters. And that is what both campaigns are doing.

Right. And just to talk about it from the Biden side of things, President Biden, you know, he went and he stood with the United Auto Workers when they were on strike. He's recently announced new tariffs. He never really rolled back the Trump era tariffs on China and on steel. And he is certainly in a way that that Hillary Clinton in 2016 really didn't. He is making a play for those very same male voters. I think it's fascinating that in what the Biden campaign is trying to do is appeal to working class voters, not just white working class voters. I mean, we saw this with an ad campaign that the Biden campaign's put out in Pennsylvania, for example, with a black man who is a union member who was touting Biden's strength

with unions and what he's done for working people. And that's sort of a counterweight to what Trump is needing to do, which is appeal very strongly to white voters without college degrees who make up a significant portion of the vote in each of those three states. One problem, though, that Trump may have is the changing demographics in the country because white voters without college degrees turned out at about 55% turnout rate in 2016. There were more than that, 63% in 2020, but he still lost. And that's because of the changing demography of the country, where you have more Latinos, more Asian Americans in the country, and a shrinking share of the electorate for white working class voters. I talked to Michael McDonald, who's a professor at the University of Florida. He's sort of the preeminent turnout expert in the country. And he's predicting that there's going to be a lower turnout in 2024 than 2020. Because remember,

2020 was during the pandemic and lots of mail-in votes. Here's what he had to say and how that could affect the election. To replicate that again in 2024, there are going to have to be some really major issues and you're really going to have to energize voters. And the people who would most likely then not participate if we're going to have a lower turnout in 2020 are going to be these lower education voters. The Democratic Party has made a play for college educated voters who traditionally would be Republican, but have felt discomfort with Trump on various levels. Yeah, we started to see that shift in our polling where white college educated men had gone for Trump by three points in 2020, according to the exit polls. And our latest poll showed Biden up more than 20 points with them. We'll see if that holds. But if it does, it certainly indicates a reshaping of the parties. Right. Broadly speaking, yes, we often talk about racial gender divides in voting,

and those aren't disappearing exactly, but they're shifting some with some, for example, non-white groups. Polls are starting to show moving away from the Democratic Party. But we are possibly seeing a different divide open even wider, which is the educational divide, with college-educated voters moving more Democratic and non-college-educated voters moving more Republican. I think that is pretty fair to say at this point. All right. Well, we are going to take a quick break. And when we come back, the Sun Belt. And we're back. And the Sun Belt is also a major area of focus for both campaigns with lots of young voters of color, Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, Florida and North Carolina. Domenico, what does the landscape look like there? This is really super interesting because the landscape in the Sun Belt is completely changing

and the demographics there are why. We talked about Latinos and Asian Americans being two of the fastest and largest growing groups in the country when it comes to the changes overall. And that's really reshaped places like Nevada and Arizona in the southwest, New Mexico, Colorado, and even in Georgia, for example. You know, you've had a huge change overall with lots of different demographic groups coming into play where Democrats are really looking at the Sun Belt as the future of the Democratic Party, whereas maybe the blue wall was something of the past. And in terms of whether these are lean Democratic, lean Republican or total toss-ups, where do these states fall? Well, these Sunbelt states, because of how the demography is changing, Democrats are really looking to the Sunbelt states as the future of the Democratic Party. And, you know, that's because of Latinos,

Asian-Americans, Black voters, remigration to the South also. And these states, many of them now, which had been states that had been really Republican states, are now either in the toss-up category or lean Republican category. I would put Florida in the likely Republican category just because of its history in the last few election cycles. So, Danielle, we used to talk a lot about demographics being destiny with a growing non-white voter population in the country. That's a group of voters that traditionally have been Democratic voters. But I feel like the whole demographics is destiny thing might be shifting somewhat. Sure, yes. And it is possible to overstate this. Depending on who you are reading or listening to during this cycle, there are some,

particularly on the Republican side in the Trump column, who are very happy to tell you that a historic realignment is happening, that Trump is going to win over unprecedented or at the least, in recent years, unprecedented numbers of black and brown voters. I think a lot of pollsters you might talk to, analysts you might talk to, would cast doubt on something that big, of something that historic. But many polls we have seen have shown that, for example, Latinos are shifting away from Joe Biden and towards Donald Trump. We have some indications that maybe some Black voters are shifting towards Trump as well. I mean, so yes, in terms of race and ethnicity, there are some signs that that whole demographics are destiny, which really has often been shorthand for the more nonwhite the country becomes, the more democratic it might become.

That might not be right. Now, that said, like I said earlier, you have other demographics that might be destiny. Yeah, you have other demographic shifts that are happening now, especially education. It is hard to really overstate how wide the gaps in education can be. Again, the more educated people in the population tending to vote Democratic and more than they used to, and the non-college educated people who are voting more Republican than they used to. You know, demographics is destiny, but issues matter too. I think that's kind of what it's about. And right now, the economy, inflation for a lot of voters, especially working class Latino voters, it's a struggle. It's difficult in a place like Nevada, in a place like Arizona. I also think that really

the overarching piece of what we're talking about here when it comes to the Sun Belt, in especially those couple of states, is Latino voters, as Danielle was talking about. And I put this question to Mike McDonald about Latinos and why they might be shifting in some respects toward Trump. And a lot of it has to do with how immigration is talked about and how that is framed. For Latinos, people who've been here for a while actually don't like illegal immigration. They got here legally. They look at people who are here undocumented and say, well, that's not fair. So you can hear there, you know, the longer you're here and when you did it as they feel correctly, then there's a different sense

of how this debate is framed from the left and that they don't just carte blanche agree with the Democratic argument on this. However, as McDonald put it, he said, when you start becoming punitive, we start calling people animals or dehumanizing them. Then that's a big put off. So a lot of this line is going to depend on how much Trump crosses the line or doesn't and how he frames it. And with regards to the economy, the Biden campaign is very clear that they understand they have a problem in Nevada, a state that has had a slow recovery, that has really struggled to come back in a way that other states have not. It's a state that hasn't experienced the onshoring boom that the blue wall states, for instance, have experienced some of. Another issue, though, that is really important in this election, as far as we can tell, and Danielle, you've covered this a lot, is abortion. It is likely, Democrats believe, to be a motivator for voters. And certainly

former President Trump has been talking about the issue a lot in terms of figuring out a safe island for himself. Yes. Yeah. And Florida, which has a six-week abortion ban, will have a measure on the ballot that could potentially protect abortion access or reopen abortion access, I should say, in the state this November. And so Democrats are hoping that that drives out a lot of Democratic and Democratic-leaning independent voters. In fact, the Biden campaign has said that they are doing some reproductive freedom, as they call it, events in Florida this week. And so they are putting a stake in the ground of Florida to see if they can move some of the numbers there, because it's a very expensive state to campaign in, to advertise in. The Biden

campaign spent $150 million in Florida in 2020 to no avail. So should they use that money in that state? Would they be better served putting it in one of these other seven states? I think that's the calculation the campaign is going to have to make. And it depends on how much extra money they have. Yeah. I mean, talk about demographic shifts going from being the toss-up state in the year 2000 to not really even being competitive in 2020, despite a lot of spending. Well, Tam, you mentioned the 2000 election. I mean, look at how these Sunbelt states have changed in the last 20 years. Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Georgia, North Carolina, all toss up states close to it or solidly in the Democratic column. But speaking of major shifts, let's also talk about issue shifts.

As of 2012, 2016, years ago, it was very easy for you to go out and talk to a bunch of voters to find Republicans who said abortion is my top issue. It was hard to find Democrats saying that. Now that is entirely flipped and it's easy to lose sight of how big of a deal that is. But it is a 180 degree shift from when I first started reporting. All right. We are going to leave it there for now. But before we go, House Speaker Mike Johnson and a bipartisan majority in the House of Representatives this weekend passed a series of bills to provide aid to Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan. But as expected, Johnson was forced to rely on a lot of Democratic votes to make that happen. The number of Republicans publicly calling for his ouster is up to three.

The Senate is expected to take up the foreign aid bills later this week, and we will have an eye on all of it. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Danielle Kurtzleben. I cover the presidential campaign. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.