The 2024 presidential race will seemingly come down once more to only a handful of states and an in depth Electoral School contest.
The U.S. Structure requires {that a} candidate win a majority of electoral votes to win the election outright. With the full variety of electoral votes at present set at 538, a candidate should tally at the least 270 to turn out to be president.
An excellent variety of whole electoral votes presents the nation with the danger of a possible tie of 269-269 within the Electoral School, a danger made extra potential in an in depth contest.
The U.S. practically witnessed a tie 4 years in the past. This could have occurred had Donald Trump received in Wisconsin, Arizona and both Michigan or Georgia. Alternatively, Trump wins in Pennsylvania, Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District, and both Michigan or Georgia would have additionally resulted in an Electoral School impasse.
Certainly, less than 43,000 votes separated Trump from Joe Biden in Georgia, Wisconsin and Arizona.
The 2024 election will likely be determined by the “blue wall” states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania and the sunbelt swing states of Arizona, Nevada, Georgia and North Carolina. Polling reveals these battleground states to be the closest and each campaigns are investing their assets most closely — and virtually completely — in these seven states.
The election is also being waged in the 2nd Congressional District of Nebraska, considered one of solely two states (together with Maine) that allocate their electoral votes using the district method, reasonably than utilizing a winner-take-all vote. Though Joe Biden carried the 2nd District in 2020, it’s at present represented by Don Bacon, a Republican, and rated as “even” in Cook Partisan Voter Index.
Holding the outcomes of the 2020 electoral map fixed, if Kamala Harris wins the blue wall states, and Donald Trump wins the sunbelt swing states and Nebraska’s 2nd District, the election would end in a tie.
One other situation yielding a tie would contain Trump profitable in Michigan, Pennsylvania and North Carolina, and Harris profitable Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, Wisconsin and Nebraska’s 2nd District. Given the perceived closeness of the 2024 election, these outcomes have a a lot larger than zero likelihood of occurring.
If a tie had been to occur in November, actual people holding the workplace of presidential elector will collect of their state capitols on Dec. 17 to translate the favored vote into electoral votes. Whereas most states have legal guidelines looking for to bind electors to the winner of the favored vote of their state, many don’t, thus making them suspectable to high-pressure lobbying campaigns within the weeks following the election.
Within the occasion of a tie, even one faithless elector might ostensibly swing the election.
Regardless of the Supreme Court docket’s ruling in 2020 in Chiafalo v. Washington that states can prohibit faithless electors, 13 states, composing 106 electoral votes, don’t have any legal guidelines prohibiting faithless votes. These embrace the swing states of Pennsylvania and Georgia.
One other 15 states prohibit faithless votes however don’t determine a way to cancel these votes. If faithless votes happen, they may actually be challenged throughout Congress’s certification of electoral votes on Jan. 6, 2025.
Offered an electoral vote tie stays in place after the Electoral School vote, it will be as much as the newly elected 119th Congress to find out the election winners with the Home of Representatives deciding on the president and the Senate tasked with choosing the vp.
Within the Senate, every senator would have one vote, and voting would proceed till one candidate instructions a majority. If Democrats retain management of the Senate following the election, they may actually choose Tim Walz to turn out to be the vp. If Republicans achieve management, they may undoubtedly choose JD Vance.
The Structure is silent about whether or not Kamala Harris, the sitting vp, might forged a tie-breaking vote within the Senate if the physique was deadlocked in such a novel circumstance.
The Home makes use of a completely completely different process. As a substitute of every particular person consultant casting a vote, each state Home delegation must determine how that exact state would forged its vote.
The Republicans at present have a 28-22 edge in management over U.S. Home delegations. Except Democrats made vital features in management over Home delegations within the election, the Home of Representatives would seemingly select Donald Trump as president.
For individuals who are essential of the Electoral School, the contingency process reveals vital issues. First, it offers nice energy to particular person states, no matter their inhabitants. Within the Home, a vote from California, with a inhabitants of greater than 40 million individuals, can be equal to a vote from Wyoming, with a inhabitants of lower than 600,000.
The contingency process additionally reveals how People might find yourself with a president of 1 occasion and a vp of one other. If Republicans managed sufficient delegations within the Home and Democrats maintain on to the Senate, the end result would seemingly be a Trump-Walz administration.
The final time an administration had two presidential opponents from completely different events find yourself in the identical administration was 1800 with President John Adams, the Federalist, and Vice President Thomas Jefferson, the Democratic-Republican, serving collectively for 4 very tumultuous years.
The 2020 election and the Jan. 6 Capitol riot demonstrated that campaigns might go to nice lengths to check the bounds of the Structure, together with these charged to implement it. Though an Electoral School tie is unlikely, it’s potential given the present state of the race.
The chicanery that might ensue consequently would usher in one more constitutional disaster that might check the American republic in unprecedented and probably harmful methods.
Robert Alexander, Ph.D., is a professor of political science at Bowling Inexperienced State College. He’s the creator of “Illustration and the Electoral School,” printed by Oxford College Press. David B. Cohen, Ph.D., is a professor of political science and director of the utilized politics program at The College of Akron.
