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The American Redistricting Project has a map projecting what the Electoral College will look like after the 2030 census.
The states in red are expected to lose congressional seats, and thus electoral votes. For Democrats, it’s a dismal projection:
The states in green are historically Republican, although Joe Biden won Arizona in 2020.
To sum up, Democratic states are projected to lose a total of 11 electoral votes. Republican states are expected to gain 11.
By the 2032 presidential election, Democrats would no longer be able to count on victory by winning their safe blue states (like New York, California, Illinois, etc.) plus the so-called “Blue Wall” states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
That scenario currently gives them 270 electoral votes, assuming Democrats win the congressional district in Nebraska and the GOP wins one in Maine. (Those states divide their electoral votes based on who wins each congressional district.) That's enough to win the White House.
But in 2032, that same collection of states would only be worth 259 votes, assuming the projections hold. That’s 11 short of a victory.
Winning Nevada — which Democrats did in 2008, 2012, 2016 and 2020 — wouldn’t be enough. It’s projected to be only worth six electoral votes, so that puts Democrats at 265.
That means Democrats must win one of these three: Arizona (projected to be worth 12), Georgia or North Carolina (both projected to remain the same at 16).
Winning just Arizona would give them 271. That’s enough to win. Winning Georgia or North Carolina would give them 275.
All of this means a lot more attention is heading our way — even compared to the avalanche of ads and candidate events we’ve gotten used to in North Carolina over the past decades.
Democrats have won the three Blue Wall states plus at least one of Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina twice in the last 25 years: 2008 and 2020.
North Carolina has been fiercely contested in the last five presidential elections. For Democrats, it’s been one of the few places they have been able to go on offense. But the state hasn’t been necessary for them to win it all. It’s a cherry on top of the sundae.
So, which state would be the Democrat’s best chance?
It’s impossible to say what will happen politically in the next seven years. Perhaps the new political alliances will stall or revert to a pre-Trump era. Perhaps Black men and Latinos return to the Democratic Party at levels seen in the Obama era. Or will more college-educated voters return to the GOP?
Let’s take a state-by-state look at some possibilities.
Arizona
Biden narrowly won this state in 2020 — the first Democratic victory since Bill Clinton in 1996.
The state has long been assumed to be trending Democratic because of its fast-growing Latino population. But in 2024, Latinos shifted toward the GOP. And Arizona has a low percentage of residents that hold a bachelor’s degree or higher, at 32.6%. The national average is about 38%.
That’s a bad sign for Democrats.
Trump also won the state in November by 5.5 percentage points.
Georgia
Georgia was a surprise Biden victory in 2020. And of the three states in question, Trump won it by the smallest margin this past November, at 2.2 percentage points.
It has a larger Black population than Arizona and North Carolina at 31%, although its percentage of college graduates is slightly lower than North Carolina.
North Carolina
The best data point for Democrats here is that nearly 37% of residents are college graduates. That’s just below the national average of 38%.
There’s strong growth in blue metro areas like Charlotte, Raleigh and the Triad.
Another positive sign for Democrats: The state had one of the smallest shifts to the right of any in the nation. Trump won it by 1.3 percentage points in 2020; he won it by 3.2 percentage points in 2024.
But there are also positive signs for Republicans.
They are adding voters in fast-growing rural and exurban counties, like Brunswick and Davidson. And overall, more voters are choosing to identify as Republicans than Democrats.
Since the 2022 midterms, there are 191,000 fewer registered Democrats in North Carolina. There are about 37,000 more Republicans.
Republicans will likely overtake Democrats in registered voters in the fall for the first time in the modern era. Unaffiliated voters are the largest voting bloc in the state.
One more thought
The changes in the Electoral College are mostly due to population shifts — people moving to red states for better weather, lower cost of living or more job opportunities.
But there’s another reason for the change: People in blue states are having fewer children.
Here’s a map of fertility rates from the CDC:
Getting families in blue states to have more children is a nearly impossible task, at least in the short term. It’s just another hurdle for Democrats to reclaim power.
