The Year That Will Be: Political Predictions for 2024
Political predictions always are fraught with peril. The unexpected can turn an election on its head overnight. Who in early January 2020 would have predicted that the year would be dominated by a global pandemic? In 2024, some issues and events seem certain, but the coming months will be filled with knowns and unknowns.
(Note: A look at events and issues poised to shape 2024 was posted in my previous Substack column.)
Biden vs Trump 2.0 isn’t likely to generate the record voter turnout of 2020. Most voters are tired of both candidates and of politics in general. Biden, Trump, Republicans and Democrats will get their core constituencies to the polls, but in an evenly divided and polarized country, races for the White House, Congress and the Minnesota House of Representatives likely will turn on the handful of issues that motivate independents and casual partisan voters.
Biden and Trump, each in his own way, want voters to see 2024 as the year in which the fate of U.S. democracy is at stake. That’s an important debate, of course. But the reality is that the elections likely will be decided by a handful of more emotional issues.
Will abortion and women’s reproductive health drive Democratic voters more than the chaos at our southern border motivates Republicans?
Are Trump’s criminal charges and the verdicts in the multiple trials more worrisome to voters than allegations of Biden family misdeeds and possible articles of impeachment in the House?
Will still-high prices and interest rates threaten voters’ sense of personal security more than they are reassured by record low unemployment and wage gains?
Will Biden’s health and age weigh heavily on voters’ minds than the increasingly autocratic promises of Trump?
And so it goes. In a sea of noise, misinformation, rhetoric and increasingly sophisticated technology that delivers very targeted messages to individual voters, the ship of state sets sail. Here’s my predictions on where that ship finds harbors:
U.S. Senate
Democrats currently have a narrow majority in the U.S. Senate, 51-49 (including two independents who caucus with Democrats). Democrats must defend 23 of 34 seats up for election and they start behind the eight-ball; Sen. Joe Manchin’s retirement in West Virginia almost certainly moves that seat to the Republican column.
The other most challenging seats are in Arizona (incumbent Kyrsten Sinema has switched from Democrat to independent and has yet to announce if she will seek re-election); Ohio (incumbent Sherrod Brown faces a difficult race in a state that becomes more Republican every year); and, Montana (Jon Tester faces a difficult re-election contest in one of the reddest of red states).
Prediction: Republicans win Montana, but Democrats hold Ohio and Arizona. With West Virginia moving to the Republican column, that leaves the Senate divided 50-50 giving tie-breaking power to whomever is elected vice president (the vice president serves as president of the Senate with voting privileges only in cases of tie votes).
U.S. House of Representatives
With the expulsion of Rep. George Santos and the resignations of two GOP incumbents, Republicans hold 219 seats. That gives them a razor-thin margin (a majority of 217 votes is needed to pass legislation; that’s a high bar in a caucus so deeply divided).
Immediately, the House faces difficult votes, including two budget deadlines, Jan. 19 and Feb. 2, that could shut down all or parts of the federal government, and funding for border security and aid to Ukraine and Israel. More turmoil and questions of whether the GOP is capable of leadership could be the order of business in the House.
What does 2024 hold? Republicans start with about 207 seats that are either solid or leaning toward the GOP in 2024 races; Democrats claim 203. That leaves 35 truly contested seats, with many of them to be shaped by court challenges over redistricting in several states.
Prediction – Enough voters in swing districts will grow tired of GOP excesses, including the rhetoric of likely presidential candidate Donald Trump, causing the House to flip and give Democrats a narrow majority in 2025.
Minnesota
Sen. Amy Klobuchar faces re-election in 2024, but Republicans have failed to coalesce around a candidate. Klobuchar wins in a landslide.
The state’s eight House seats also are unlikely to change their current 4-4 partisan split. The open Third District (Minneapolis suburbs where Dean Phillips is giving up his seat for his quixotic presidential bid) has become solidly Democratic. Meanwhile, incumbents Angie Craig (D-Second District) and Pete Stauber (R-Eighth District) could be vulnerable if 2024 is a huge swing election, but short of that, both seem on paths to win reelection.
That leaves control of the Minnesota House of Representatives as the most interesting state political question for 2024. With neither the governor nor the state Senate up for election, all eyes are on the House.
Democrats currently hold a six-seat majority. The history of Minnesota is one in which one or the other legislative houses often flip. In 2022, 13 of the 134 seats were decided by margins of 5% or less, and those close contests were evenly divided (six DFLers, seven GOP). Close races and turnover in the legislature are thanks in part to legislative districts almost always drawn by courts. The districts are well-drawn and reflect the state’s divided politics.
Republicans will try to focus voters on scandals (Feeding Our Future), boondoggles (cost overruns on the Southwest Light Rail and the growing price tag - now at about $500 million - to renovate the State Office Building) and the failure of Democrats to return a significant share of last year’s nearly $18 billion surplus to taxpayers.
For their part, Democrats will run on the expansion of the safety net, especially popular programs like free school meals for all and paid family and medical leave, and increased support for areas Minnesotans traditionally value, including education.
Prediction - Although much of the money for legislative campaigns now is channeled to the legislative caucuses and third-party groups, parties still matter. The state GOP continues to fight money and organizational problems while the DFL remains an effective party organization. In addition, Republicans in Minnesota have some of the same ideological divisions as their national counterparts with a far-right group posing the potential to challenge more moderate Republican incumbents in primaries. In the end, Democrats will hold their majority, although it’s likely to be slim again heading into a more difficult budget year in 2025.
President
And in the main event of 2024, the race for the White House, the winner will be…
If presidents were elected by popular vote, Biden would be a strong favorite. But the founders of the country decided a different process, the electoral college, would be a better safeguard against the influences of political parties, large states and and special interests. The electoral college also protected slavery, but that’s another discussion.
The race almost certainly will be a rematch between Biden and Trump. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has been an inept campaigner. In addition, he has made the case that most Republican voters don’t want a more competent Donald Trump, they want the real thing. His campaign will end by Super Tuesday, March 5, if he even makes it that far.
Former Gov. Nikki Haley remains a long-shot. She has to do well in New Hampshire and win her home state of South Carolina to remain viable. Her appalling misstep on slavery as a cause of the Civil War, though, greatly damaged her appeal to independent voters and potential Democratic crossovers. Both groups are key to her doing well in the early states.
Between Biden and Trump, it’s a dead heat. While early polls give Trump an edge, the head-to-head results in surveys don’t mean much at this stage of the campaign. An analysis of the “solid” electoral votes show a fairly evenly divided country, with Democrats holding a slight edge. The race likely will be decided by the 56 electoral votes in Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Prediction - Ultimately, voters in 2024 will decide that the comforting and stable “Uncle Joe” is a safer bet than the mercurial and threatening Donald Trump. Biden wins a close one, Trump cries fraud and we will begin 2025 with the same threats to democracy that frame the start of 2024.