ANALYSIS — New district-level analysis confirms what Republicans have been bragging about for months: 2024 was a good year for the GOP.
On the surface, Republicans won the White House, took over the Senate and held the House. But a deeper dive into the results in individual House districts gives more texture to the underlying partisan shifts and geographic success that contributed to President Donald Trump’s edge over Democrat Kamala Harris in the national popular vote.
Using Inside Elections’ Baseline metric as a guide, 24 of the 25 House districts that shifted the most from 2022 to 2024 did so in Republicans’ favor. Unlike the 10 most evenly divided seats at the core of the current House battleground, very few of the seats that shifted the most are particularly competitive, and some of them are among the most partisan in the country.
Inside Elections’ Baseline metric captures a congressional district’s (or state’s) political performance by combining all federal and state election results over the past four election cycles into a single score. This index aims to approximate what share of the vote a “typical” Democrat or Republican might receive in any given district by including elections beyond presidential contests.
Overall, 254 House districts saw a shift in partisan performance toward Republicans, while 166 saw Baseline movement toward Democrats.
The two districts that shifted the most might be the least interesting