Harris ‘resets’ electoral map, moving three states in Democrats’ favor

A nonpartisan election handicapper has updated ratings for three states in the 2024 presidential election cycle , shifting them toward Democrats after Vice President Kamala Harris became the party’s nominee for president.

Sabato’s Crystal Ball is moving Georgia into the “toss-up” category, from "leans Republican." And Minnesota and New Hampshire are now rated as “likely Democratic," a shift from "leans Democratic."

Georgia has 16 electoral votes, Minnesota has 10, and New Hampshire has four. The election projector now shows Democrats with 226 electoral votes from states at a minimum leaning Democrat, while Republicans have 235 electoral votes from states that at least lean Republican. There are currently 77 votes in play from “toss-up” states.

In rationalizing the change in ratings, the group said in the weeks since Harris “emerged as Democrats' standard-bearer, she has ‘reset’ the electoral map to some degree” after polling better than President Joe Biden before he ended his 2024 run. Gov. Tim Walz's (D-MN), Harris's newly announced running mate, state also shifted toward the Democratic ticket.

“It appears that at least in the short term, Harris has reversed the slippage — or has at least been able to stop the bleeding — that Democrats have seen since the Biden-Trump debate in June,” J. Miles Coleman of Sabato’s Crystal Ball wrote.

“Looking nationally, Harris currently leads in all national polling aggregators. When Biden left the race, he was generally polling behind Trump. Harris making the race into more of a 50-50 proposition means we should adjust our own ratings to better reflect the state of the race,” he added.

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Biden won all three of these states in 2020. Earlier in June, Georgia’s rating was shifted from "toss-up" to “leans Republican” in the wake of Biden’s poor debate performance in early June. At that time, Pennsylvania, which was once rated as “leans Democratic,” was changed to a "toss-up," and the rating has not changed.

“Unlike Harris’s other top prospect for the second-place position, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D), Walz does not seem positioned to directly deliver a state’s electoral votes: Before Walz was announced, we already had his Minnesota at Leans Democratic in the Electoral College,” Coleman added.