CBS News
Revisit the 2020 election results map ahead of the 2024 presidential election
Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris are heading into Election Day with razor-thin margins separating them in the handful of states that will ultimately decide the winner.
The 2024 election map bears some similarities to the landscape that Trump encountered in 2020, when he was defending the White House from a challenge by Joe Biden.
Trump is hoping to win back states that he captured in 2016, when he punctured the Democratic “blue wall” en route to the presidency. Harris is hoping to retain the states that Mr. Biden won, which would give her a comfortable victory in the Electoral College.
The 2020 Electoral College map
In 2020, Mr. Biden won 81,284,666 votes nationwide, compared to Trump’s 74,224,319.
But the presidency is won in the Electoral College, not the popular vote. Mr. Biden bested Trump by that measure, too, winning 306 electoral votes to Trump’s 232. A majority in the Electoral College — 270 votes — is needed to win the White House.
The Biden campaign built a coalition that helped him recapture once-reliable blue states that Trump had flipped in 2016, returning Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania to the Democratic column. He also picked up Arizona and Georgia to solidify his victory.
This map shows the states that Trump and Mr. Biden won in 2020:
For 2024, CBS News considers seven states to be battleground states that will largely decide the race. Those states are:
- Arizona
- Georgia
- Michigan
- Nevada
- North Carolina
- Pennsylvania
- Wisconsin
Pennsylvania’s 19 electoral votes make it the biggest prize of the night — a victory there makes winning the necessary 270 electoral votes much easier for either candidate.
How the electoral map has changed since 2020
The Electoral College votes are apportioned based on each state’s representation in Congress. Every state gets at least three votes — one for each of their two senators, and one for each representative in the House. (This gives smaller states outsized influence on the result, since a state like Wyoming or Vermont is guaranteed more electoral votes than it would receive if they were divided strictly by population.) The District of Columbia also gets three votes, although residents have no voting members in Congress.
The electoral votes are reapportioned every 10 years as states gain or lose House seats based on their fluctuating populations. Those determinations are made by the results of the U.S. Census. If a state’s population increased relative to other states, it might gain a seat or two. If its population decreased, a seat might go elsewhere.
Six states gained electoral votes in the 2024 race: Colorado, Florida, Montana, North Carolina and Oregon gained one each, and Texas gained two. Conversely, seven states lost a vote: California, Ohio, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.
Here is a look at where states have gained and lost Electoral College votes since 2020:
Boeing’s 33,000 unionized machinists on Wednesday voted to approve the plane manufacturer’s latest contract offer, ending a seven-week strike that had halted production of most of the company’s passenger planes.
The union said 59% voted to accept the contract. Members have the option of returning to work as soon as Wednesday, but must be back at work by Tuesday, November 12, the union said in a statement.
Union leaders had strongly urged members to ratify the latest proposal, which would boost wages by 38% over the four-year life of the contract, up from a proposed increase of 35% that members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) had rejected last month.
The revised deal also provides a $12,000 cash bonus to hourly workers and increased contributions to retirement savings plans. The enhanced offer doesn’t address a key sticking point in the contentious talks — restoration of pensions — but Boeing would raise its contributions to employee 401K plans.
Average annual pay for machinists, now $75,608, would climb to $119,309 in four years under the current offer, Boeing said.
The vote came after IAM members in September and October rejected lesser offers by the Seattle-based aerospace giant.
“In every negotiation and strike, there is a point where we have extracted everything we can in bargaining and by withholding our labor,” the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers stated last week in backing Boeing’s revised offer. “We are at that point now and risk a regressive or lesser offer in the future.”
Acting U.S. Labor Secretary Julie Su has played an active role in the negotiations, after recently helping to end a days-long walkout that briefly closed East and Gulf Coast ports.
The Boeing strike that began on Sept. 13 marked the latest setback for the manufacturing giant, which has been the focus of multiple federal probes after a door plug blew off a 737 Max plane during an Alaska Airlines flight in January. The incident revived concerns about the safety of the aircraft after two crashed within five months in 2018 and 2019, killing 346 people.
Boeing in July agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy to commit fraud for deceiving regulators who approved the 737 Max.
During the strike, Boeing was unable to produce any new 737 aircraft, which are made at the company’s assembly plants in the Seattle area. One major Boeing jet, the 787 Dreamliner, is manufactured at a nonunion factory in South Carolina.
The company last month reported a third-quarter loss of $6.1 billion.
contributed to this report.
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