Michael Patrick Leahy, CEO and editor-in-chief of The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network, announced the launch of the Star News Electoral College Map for the 2024 presidential election.
The 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia elect the president through the Electoral College process. There are 538 electors in total as each state is represented by a number of electors equal to the size of its congressional delegation.
A presidential candidate must receive a majority – at least 270 – electoral votes in order to win the Electoral College.
The Star News Electoral College Map, which will be unveiled this week, will provide an updated forecast of how many electoral votes are expected to be awarded to each candidate.
The 2024 RealClearPolitics Electoral College Map, for example, currently shows Republican nominee former President Donald Trump with 219 electoral votes and incumbent Democrat President Joe Biden with 215 electoral votes – leaving 104 electoral votes as toss ups.
On Monday’s edition of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show, Leahy said the Star News Electoral College Map will provide an updated version of the map, specifically when it comes to forecasting the electoral votes from the states of North Carolina and Minnesota.
“RealClearPolitics hasn’t changed its map in a couple weeks. Basically, they put lean-Trump states together with likely-Trump states and they get a number there, and then they put likely-Biden states with lean-Biden states and they get a number there. Then they have toss ups, which they can’t pick at this moment…RealClearPolitics’ Electoral College map, as of today, is Trump 219, Biden 215, with 104 toss ups. I’ll go through their toss ups – Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and the second district of Nebraska, that one electoral college vote,” Leahy explained.
“Where we differ from RealClearPolitics today is North Carolina, which they have a toss up. It is not a toss up. It’s Trump by six and everything in North Carolina is going Trump’s way. So we have the 16 electoral college votes in North Carolina in the Trump camp, which would take him to 235. Then, we’re going to give one state Minnesota which has 10 electoral college votes – which RealClearPolitics puts Minnesota in the toss up category – [to the Biden camp.] Any state that elects Ilhan Omar to Congress is not a toss up state, it’s just a left wing Democrat state,” Leahy added.
The Star News Electoral College Map forecasts Trump to have 235 electoral votes, Biden with 225 electoral votes, and a remaining 78 toss up votes.
In regards to the toss up votes, Leahy said he believes the 2024 presidential election is going to be decided by Pennsylvania, as the state is a toss up with 19 electoral votes.
“The most important one is Pennsylvania. I think this election is going to really come down to Pennsylvania, 19 votes there,” Leahy said.
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
