INDIANA
Indiana, the home of Mike Pence and Dan Quayle, will get its chance this November to elect another single-term vice president to the chief executive. But will Donald Trump’s falling out with Vice President Pence hurt his chances in the Hoosier State, or will he still glide to victory even without the former governor’s support?
In the past two election cycles, Trump has been dominant in Indiana. In 2020, while his support crumbled in most sun and rust belt states, Trump quietly (but nonetheless impressively) pulled in 172,000 more votes in Indiana than four years prior. Percentagewise, he gained 1/5th of a point, from 56.8% to 57%, in a year where he lost ground in all but seven states. With Harris’ association with the unpopularity of the Biden Administration, former president Trump certainly can grow his margin of victory in the state.
Indiana’s 2022 Senate race, where incumbent Republican Todd Young took on Democratic challenger Thomas McDermott, indicates Trump may be able to outperform both his 2016 and 2020 victories in the Midwestern state. Young received 58.7% of the vote, compared to McDermott’s meager 37.9%. This represented a massive gain from Young’s first Senate election back in 2016, where he barely cracked 50% of the vote, showing that Republican support in Indiana remains as strong as ever.
So, will The Donald be able to put up 58% or more of the vote? Not necessarily. It isn’t all rosy for the GOP; the battle over abortion threatens to dash Trump’s chances of any gains in the state. In 2023, Indiana initiated a near-total ban on abortions, which took effect this past August after being injuncted for a year. Trump’s weakness and Harris’ strength on this hot-button issue will likely lead more Hoosier women to vote blue this fall. Democrats already win 43% of Indiana women, beating out the Republicans’ 39%, and with the abortion issue alienating this already smaller Republican voter base, it seems unlikely that men will turn out for Trump enough to net him any gains in the state.
We predict Trump will carry Indiana by a slightly smaller margin than in 2020. Don’t expect a collapse (Trump will win Indiana by a considerable amount), but also don’t expect any sizable gains for the former president in this state.
MINNESOTA
Having voted blue in the last 12 consecutive elections, the longest streak of any state in the nation, Minnesota has always been just shy of tipping to the Republicans. In 1984, when Incumbent Republican Ronald Reagan won 49 states against former Democratic vice president Walter Mondale, he lost Minnesota, Mondale’s home state, by just 3,761 votes. And again, in 2016, Republican Donald Trump barely lost the state to Democrat Hillary Clinton, 46.4% to 44.9%, making Minnesota the blue wall state that got away from Trump that election.
But it’s doubtful that the former President will finally be able to conquer the Land of 10,000 Lakes this November, as their Governor Tim Walz is on the Democrat ticket as Kamala Harris’ running mate. Interestingly, if victorious, he’ll be the third Minnesotan to become a Democrat VP in the last 60 years, joining Hubert Humphrey and Walter Mondale in this club. Walz was a surprise choice for Harris, beating out more nationally known Democrats like Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro and Arizona Senator and former NASA astronaut Mark Kelly. But his selection did have a clear motive: appeal to working-class Midwestern voters, especially in the crucial swing states of Wisconsin and Michigan; it’s unclear whether this strategy has had success yet.
Walz’s favorability rating in his home state is nothing to write home about. In a recent poll of likely voters by the Minnesota Star Tribune, just 48% of Minnesotans had a favorable opinion of the Governor, while 47% had an unfavorable opinion of him. Although these numbers aren’t great, Walz certainly lives up to the “do no harm” mantra of Vice-Presidential candidates better than Republican VP pick JD Vance, who had a 42% favorable and 48% unfavorable rating in the same poll. So, although Walz is unlikely to harm Harris’ campaign, he is unlikely to move the needle much either.
After Trump’s admirable 2016 performance in Minnesota, his 2020 showing was far less praiseworthy. The Incumbent Republican received just 45.3% of the vote to Democrat Joe Biden’s 52.4%, losing by a 7.1-point margin. Despite this, the GOP performed similarly in Minnesota’s 8 House Elections in 2020 to how they did in 2016, having their share of the total vote decrease by just 0.5 points from 46.73% to 46.18%. And in the 2022 midterms, Republicans came within striking distance of a majority, receiving 48.1% of the vote to the Democrats’ 50.1%.
We believe Trump is unlikely to match the GOP’s 2022 performance; polling has consistently placed him 5 to 8 points behind Harris in Minnesota. And while we don’t think he will lose by greater than 7 points, which is what he lost to Biden by four years ago, we also don’t believe this former President is in contention in the state this election cycle. Therefore, we predict that Kamala Harris will carry Minnesota by a margin of 4 to 5 points.
ILLINOIS
Illinois, the 6th most populous state in the country, is dominated by the politics of its largest city, Chicago; and residents of the Windy City are, unsurprisingly, quite liberal. Joe Biden won Illinois by a 17-point margin back in 2020, almost identical to Hillary Clinton’s margin of victory four years prior. And in a state with 17 house seats, Republicans only control three of them. So, it’s not hard to guess whether Kamala Harris or Donald Trump will win Illinois this November. But the margin of victory that Harris beats Trump by might be closer than you think.
For one thing, Illinois is not the liberal bastion many believe it to be. If you ignore Chicago, the state’s politics closely resemble its rust belt neighbor Indiana. Looking at Illinois’ 2020 election results by county, you’ll see a sea of red with a spot of blue in its top-right corner, where Chicago and its suburbs are. To improve his numbers in the Land of Lincoln, Donald Trump must overperform in this sea of red. One indicator of Republican strength in Illinois’ rural regions are the 2022 midterm election results. In the state’s house races, GOP candidates received 43.7% of the vote to the Democrats’ 56%, the best Republican performance since 2016.
Additionally, in Illinois’ 2022 senate race, Democrat Tammy Duckworth was reelected with 56.8% of the vote, her Republican opponent Kathy Salvi receiving 41.5%. And while Duckworth performed in line with her first run for senate in 2016, the GOP performed significantly better in the state’s rural areas than six years prior, a good sign for Trump. Therefore, we predict that although Kamala Harris will win Illinois by upwards of 10 points, the unpopularity of the current administration will likely weaken Harris’ appeal with voters outside Chicago, and Harris will perform worse than Biden in 2020 as a result.
And while Harris, who would be the first Black woman president if elected, may perform stronger with Chicago’s urban Black population, Trump’s gains with suburban and rural voters are more than likely to offset this.
OHIO
Perhaps no state encapsulates the changing dynamics of the Midwest – and blue-collar America as a whole – better than Ohio.
Long known for its status as a bellwether state, Ohio had been a critical battleground for nearly the entire 20th century. It remained this way through the 2000’s, when the Buckeye State played a pivotal role in delivering victories for both Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012.
Since then, however, Ohio has undergone a hard shift to the right. Trump’s 2016 and 2020 victories, where he won the state by slightly less than 10%, are commonly cited as major turning points. In reality, though, Ohio Democrats’ fortunes had begun declining years earlier: in 2010, for instance, Republicans won landslide victories on the federal, state, and local levels.
Ohio’s sharp, consistent rightward shift mirrors the changing dynamics in the Midwest as a whole. However, Ohio's political landscape is more nuanced than this single partisan trend might suggest – with an especially sharp divide between its urban, suburban, and rural areas.
The state’s largest urban centers — Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati — are strongholds for the Democratic Party. These cities and their surrounding suburbs are home to more diverse and younger populations, both of whom form the core of the modern Democratic coalition. Especially significant is Ohio’s significant Black population, particularly in Cleveland and other northern industrial cities. These communities remain strongly Democratic, driven by concerns over racial justice, economic inequality, and health care.
The three cities’ growth patterns have differed wildly. While Cincinnati’s population is relatively stagnant, and Cleveland’s been in decline for the better part of a century, Columbus is one of the fastest-growing cities in the nation. Its growing and diverse population has solidified its role as a Democratic anchor in the state.
On the surface, it might not seem clear why Ohio is significantly more conservative than other Midwestern and demographically-similar states, such as Wisconsin and Michigan.
While Ohio has cities comparable in size and politics to those in Wisconsin and Michigan, the areas outside of urban Ohio are much, much more conservative compared to their counterparts in the other states.
Ohio suburbs have long been reliable Republican strongholds, but where suburbs across America have shifted to the left during the Trump era, Ohio’s have remained defiantly conservative. This disparity can be traced to a few key demographics: educational attainment, racial diversity, and religiosity. Yes, the suburbs around areas like Cincinnati, which skew highly-educated and higher-income, have demonstrated a noticeable leftward trend. However, from a big-picture perspective, the vast majority of suburban Ohio hasn’t budged significantly.
Adding to an already-gloomy picture for Democrats: rural Ohio, which stretches across the state’s southern and western regions, votes near-universally Republican and is (seemingly) trending further in this direction. Voters in these areas, many of whom are white and work in manufacturing, agriculture, and energy, have resonated with Trump’s populist rhetoric.. The state's white, working-class voters, especially in Appalachia – a once-Democratic, heavily coal-reliant region which has bolted rightward due to the party’s increasing support of clean energy and social progressivism – have become a bedrock of the Republican coalition.
Despite Ohio’s Republican lean, the national debate over issues like reproductive rights and labor protections has significantly impacted state dynamics. The overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022 has energized large groups of voters, particularly suburban women and young voters, as seen in the landslide rejection of Issue 1 – a measure which would have allowed state Republicans to overturn abortion rights.
Despite fluctuating social dynamics, Ohio remains a clearly Republican state – and this is unlikely to change in the coming decades, as rural Ohio continues its trek rightward while suburban and urban Ohio remain mostly stagnant. We predict Trump will win Ohio by roughly 10%. This slight Republican overperformance relative to 2020 and 2016 is a function of Kamala Harris’ seeming difficulties in connecting with working class white voters.
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