Much has been made
about what’s at stake in the upcoming 2024 election, and rightfully so. The last three and a half years have seen wars
emerge on almost every continent, a dramatically weakened dollar with
persistently high inflation and declining standard of living, the deterioration
of military readiness, a wide-open southern border, the politicization of our
legal system, an unprecedented all-out assault on the unborn and those standing
up for life, attacks on religious freedom, a disconcerting rise in political
violence, and more. As a result, just
28% of Americans say the country is on the right track, and they are primed to
make their voice heard.
The presidential election between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump has generated most of the attention and campaign spending and will be the main driver of turnout among voters. Every day, there are several new national and battleground polls released to the public, and in general they show a race within the margin of error (give or take 2-4 points depending on the specific poll) at the national level. Harris currently enjoys a two-point edge in the head-to-head polling average at RealClearPolitics. The Democratic candidate has traditionally won the national popular vote, but because of the wisdom of our Founding Fathers, the Electoral College is determinative.
Sixty-one percent of Americans agree the country is on the wrong track, and while this portends trouble ahead for the Harris campaign in persuading voters to continue the Biden-Harris policies in a Kamala Harris administration, it does translate to some anti-incumbent sentiment among voters, which plays to the benefit of Senate Republicans hoping to take the majority in the upper chamber in Congress. With a slim 51-49 seat majority, the Senate Democrats stand severely disadvantaged this election. Of the 34 Senate seats up for a vote this cycle, 23 are held by Democrats, many of which are in states that are also highly competitive at the presidential level.
After redistricting in 2020, the number of competitive races in the House of Representatives dipped. Gone are the days of 40-60 seat swings like we saw in the Tea Party era. This year, Cook Political Report has identified just 26 toss-up races in the U.S. House of Representatives. Of these 26, Republicans are defending 14, and Democrats are defending 12. For the current razor-thin, three-seat Republican majority, winning every one of these toss-up races is a must. With just 23% of voters approving of the job Congress is doing, the GOP is swimming against the tide to keep their majority.
Unlike the Senate, where a presidential candidate’s coattails can be decisive, most of the toss-up races in the House are in states that are not particularly competitive at the statewide or presidential level. Each individual candidate will have to win or lose in their own foxhole. Alaska, California, Colorado, Iowa, Maine, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, and Washington account for 16 of the 24 most competitive House races and will not see a competitive result at the presidential or Senate level, or do not have a competitive Senate race. GOP incumbents in these states will have to win in an environment of supercharged Democrat turnout, and vice versa for Democrat incumbents in toss-up races in Republican states. If you’re the GOP, of particular concern are GOP incumbents in California and New York. There are eight GOP incumbents between these two states alone, and both states are likely to go for Kamala Harris by as much as 20 points, or more. Combine anti-incumbent sentiment with deep blue states and you have a strong headwind for GOP incumbents in these states.
Hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Americans, have updated their voter registration or registered to vote for the first time this year. All this data is important and tells us some early signs of how the election will go.
Early vote data shows a dramatic decline in the number of mail-in ballots requested compared to 2020. Mail-in voting is likely to play a smaller role in the 2024 election than it did in the 2020 election when so many were still dealing with COVID-19.
Then there’s the campaign spending. Kamala Harris’s campaign has raised $678 million to Donald Trump’s $313 million. The Democratic National Committee similarly enjoys a fundraising advantage over its Republican counterparts, raking in $385 million to the Republican National Committee’s $331 million. The Republicans enjoy a slight campaign finance edge in the Senate contests, outraising their Democrat counterparts $200 million to $173 million. In the House, the National Republican Congressional Committee raised $183 million to the Democrats’ $250 million. This all amounts to billions of dollars flooding the airways and cell phone towers with campaign messaging.
All of this to say, the respective candidates and political parties have their own advantages and disadvantages. It’s incredibly difficult to say which advantages will determine outcomes, whether it’s a campaign cash advantage or public polling, voter registration or mail-in ballot requests, we will not know for sure until election night. Right now, the presidential race looks like it’s trending toward Donald Trump, the Senate is securely within reach of the Republicans, and the speaker’s gavel is at risk of being handed back over to the Democrats. If that’s the case, then we’ll look back and say 2024 was clearly an anti-incumbent election, and the country is asking for change. If Harris wins, the Democrats retain control of the Senate, and win back the House, then we can say campaign funding is the decisive factor in elections. If Trump wins, the GOP wins the Senate, and retains control of the House, we can say it was a repudiation of the Biden-era with its excessive social engineering, abortion extremism, runaway spending, foreign policy blunders, and all.
As followers of Christ, we know God is sovereign. This is not an excuse for inaction, but an acknowledgement that no election outcome surprises Him. The best day of the republic still falls short of the glory of the New Heaven and New Earth to come. We should pray for righteous leaders to prevail in November and pray that our nation would once again humble itself before the Lord acknowledging how far we have fallen from His righteous standard. The 2024 elections are incredibly important because of the stark differences in worldview represented by the major parties, but their importance pales in comparison to the work needed to repair our nation’s spiritual walls.
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