Within the Margin

[Note: Ideally, this would be a 50-state series. And hopefully in 2026, it will be! But I got a pretty late start on it, and spun my wheels a bit from to time. I’ve got a bunch of states in the hopper, and we’ll see if I get a few more added to the pile before Tuesday.]

Starting Tuesday morning, each day I’ll be publishing one or two state-by-state looks at the 2024 election.

What does this series look like? For each state, my goal is to weave together three things: political geography, electoral history and the current political environment. This is the frame through which I like to analyze politics, as each element informs the other two. I’ve taken inspiration from the biennial Almanac of American Politics since grad school, before I got my start in government and politics as a career. Those publications certainly influence my writing, though I think 21st century politics – with its 24-hour news cycles and nationalized-to-a-fault political environment – has sanded them down a little bit. I want to recapture some of that exploratory sense of place as part of political discourse.

And for each state, I’ll take a look at the following, including our official WTM ratings for each:

• The presidential contest
• The U.S. Senate race if any (about a third of states do not have a Senate election this year)
• Congressional districts deemed competitive by any of our three-man ratings bureau (Matt, Jim and myself) – or by one of the various respectable ratings publications
• The gubernatorial election, where applicable (eleven states elect their governor in presidential years)
• Occasionally some discussion of the state legislature where notable and/or when time permits
• Some tables and stats and occasionally some pictures from rambles around the country over the years

I hope these are as enjoyable to read as they’ve been to write, and provide a little bit of color and narrative that you might not be finding elsewhere. I’ll see you first thing tomorrow with the first two entries in our series, Delaware and Pennsylvania!