Last updated on November 19, 2024.
Executive Summary
The 2024 elections brought a significant change in federal leadership, with key implications for county governments across the United States. The 2024 election cycle follows a pattern of recent change, with 11 of the last 13 elections (exceptions in 2004 and 2012) resulting in a change in control of the White House, House, or Senate.
Counties play a critical role in administering and monitoring elections across the country. This includes managing and coordinating voter registration, poll workers, polling locations, and ballot casting and counting. During each election cycle, counties oversee more than 100,000 polling places and manage more than 630,000 poll workers. Thank you to county government officials and volunteers for playing a crucial role in maintaining our democratic system.
Presidential election
President-elect Donald Trump has been declared the unofficial winner of the 2024 presidential election. More than 90% of counties voted in favor of President-elect Trump in the 2024 presidential election, according to a preliminary analysis by The New York Times , thus improving its vote margin compared to 2020 in more than 2,300 counties. President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance will assume their respective offices on January 21, 2025.
Congress
Republicans in the U.S. Senate took majority control with 53 Senate seats, up from four seats, with key victories in Montana, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Democrats held on to controversial seats in Michigan, Nevada, Wisconsin and Arizona. Republicans maintained tight control of the House, having reached the 218-seat threshold required for control of the House. This consolidates a Republican trio with control of the presidency, the House and the Senate.
Governorates
There were eleven gubernatorial seats up for election in 2024. All three incumbents, Greg Gianforte (R-Mont.), Spencer Cox (R-Utah) and Phil Scott (R-Vt.) retained their positions. No gubernatorial seats were flipped, allowing the Republican Party to maintain 27 seats to the Democrats’ 23.
State legislatures
Eighty-five of the nation’s 99 state legislative chambers held regular elections in 2024, representing 5,807 of the nation’s 7,386 state legislative seats (79%). The GOP made slight gains in control of state legislatures, flipping the Michigan House and securing a tie in the Minnesota House. Democrats lost control of the “trifecta,” meaning control of both state houses and the governorship, in two states. There are now 38 trifectas in the United States, up from 40.
Key takeaways
- Eleven of the last thirteen federal elections (with exceptions in 2004 and 2012) have resulted in a change of control of the White House, the House and/or the Senate.
- The 2024 cycle saw the second highest voter turnout (63.3%) since 1960, surpassed only by the 2020 election (66.7%).
- President-elect Trump is the first Republican candidate to win the popular vote since 2004, sweeping all seven states, including six won by President Joe Biden.
- After the 2024 elections, there are only three divided state delegations in the U.S. Senate, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Maine.
- For the first time since 1795, the United States House of Representatives has had three consecutive Congresses with a single-digit party divide.
- Triofectas (where one party controls both houses of the state legislature as well as the governorship) still dominate the national landscape.