Electoral votes by states in 2020; Via Wikipedia.
By Elliott Brack
Editor and Publisher, GwinnettForum
MARCH 8, 2024 | Even though Georgia and a majority of the states in our country have not voted in the presidential primary yet, it looks like the nominees are settled. It appears to be Joe Biden for the Democrats and Donald Trump for the Republicans, a rematch of 2020.
With the Georgia presidential primary next Tuesday, March 12, essentially Georgia has had little to say about presidential nominees.
Biden won the popular vote in 2020, pulling in 81 million votes, to 74 million for Trump. That’s a big margin of over seven million votes for Mr. Biden. That means Biden won 51.3 percent of the votes, while Trump pulled 46.9 percent.
Yet of course, the popular vote means nothing. The Founding Fathers didn’t want the largest populated states to determine elections. The Electoral College was designed to ensure that the more populous states didn’t overpower the smaller states when choosing the nation’s leader. So, each of the states are allocated electoral votes.
Currently, the Electoral College consists of 538 electors. This number comes from the number of senators (100) and representatives (435) elected to represent each state, plus an additional three electors for the District of Columbia (Washington, D.C.), which is allotted a number of votes equal to the number of electors of the least-populated state (Wyoming).
While it appears that President Biden should win the popular vote again, it’s the Electoral College which concerns the Democrats. Just a slight shift in a few states could significantly change the outcome of the 2024 presidential election.
In 2020, President Biden won the Electoral College by a 306 to 232 count. That’s a 64 electoral vote margin, a fairly big number.
But consider: if just a few states had a slight change in the way they voted from 2020, Donald Trump could be president again.
Consider this scenario: both Georgia and Michigan have 16 electoral votes. Biden won Georgia by 11,779 votes, while his margin in Michigan was larger, 154,188 votes. But if both states flipped to the Republicans in 2024, that would make the Electoral College margin 274-264, in favor of Biden.
Taking this further, if Nevada with six electors flipped from Democratic blue to Republican red, Trump would win (with 270 votes). Or if New Mexico with five electors flipped, both Biden and Trump would have 269 votes, meaning that the winner would have to be decided in the House or Representatives, with each state having one vote!
A majority of the states is needed to win in the House, that is, 26 votes. Senators would elect the vice president, with each Senator having a vote. A majority of Senators (51) is needed to win that office.
State House delegations can cast their vote for president from among the three candidates receiving the most electoral votes. In Georgia and 47 other states and the District of Columbia, electors vote according to who wins the total popular vote.
What does all this mean? We are pleased that we have the obvious safeguards through the Electoral College. We do not want to dump it. But with it as law, while the popular vote is important, the Electoral College could give us another four years of Donald Trump as the leader of the so-called free world.
- Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
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