Republicans’ success at the ballot box in 2024 was decisive but not overwhelming. The GOP owes its continued control of the House to a mere 7,309 votes spread across three districts. At the presidential level, Donald Trump owes his Electoral College victory to 229,766 voters out of 155.2 million cast. And in the Senate, while Republicans easily picked off Democratic-held seats in the red states of West Virginia, Montana and Ohio, they managed to capture just one purple state — Pennsylvania — and by just 15,115 votes.
The results of this election, like those of 2016 and 2020, proved that neither party can claim a mandate or even a lasting and pervasive political majority. Instead, our politics is fought on the margins, with just a few thousand votes making the difference between who controls Congress and the White House. For the last 18 years, voters’ support for the status quo has been waning. Since 2006, every election but one (2012), has seen a change in party control of the House, Senate, or White House. For the first time since the
What is The Cook Political Report?
The Cook Political Report is an independent, non-partisan newsletter that analyzes elections and campaigns for the US House of Representatives, US Senate, Governors and President as well as American political trends.
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