According to a December survey, Donald Trump's favorability among Republicans remained strong following the 2024 election, with 72 percent viewing him very favorably and 18 percent somewhat favorably. This overwhelming support from his party base contrasts sharply with Democrats, of whom 84 percent viewed Trump very unfavorably. Independents were more divided, with 47 percent expressing some degree of favorability towards the former president. Electoral college victory Trump's popularity among Republicans translated into electoral success in the 2024 presidential election. He secured 312 electoral votes, surpassing the 270 needed to win the presidency. This victory came as Trump won all seven swing states, some by significant margins, despite pre-election polls showing only a slight lead in most battleground states. Increased republican support The 2024 election saw Republicans gain ground across the country. Every state reported an increase in Republican votes compared to 2020, with New York showing the largest gain of 6.43 percent. New Jersey and Florida also saw significant increases of nearly five percent. This surge in Republican support led to Trump flipping six states that he had lost in the previous election, contributing to his decisive victory.

Florida was admitted to the union in 1845, and has taken part in 43 U.S. presidential elections since this time. In these 43 elections, Florida has voted for the overall winner thirty times, giving a success rate of seventy percent. Since 1928, Florida has voted for the winning candidate in 21 out of 24 elections, and is considered a key battleground state in modern elections. Florida has voted for a major party nominee in every election, backing the Republican nominee 17 times, Democrat 25 times, and the only time it did not vote Republican or Democrat was in 1848 when it voted for the Whig Party's Zachary Taylor. Florida did not take part in the 1864 election due to its secession from the Union in the American Civil War, and like most other southern states it primarily voted Democrat until the mid-twentieth century, when it then started leaning more Republican. No U.S. President has ever been born in Florida, or resided there when taking office; although Donald Trump declared himself a resident of Florida in 2019, therefore making it his official home state during the 2020 election. The 2020 election in Florida proved to be a surprise for many, as Donald Trump won the popular vote by a 3.4 percent margin; most polls had favored Biden going into election day, however intensive campaigning and increased Republican support among Cuban Americans has been cited as the reason for Trump's victory in Florida.

Florida's importance

In 1920, Florida's population was fewer than one million people; however it has grown drastically in the past century to almost 22 million people, making Florida the third most populous state in the country. With this population boom, Florida's allocation of electoral votes has surged, from just six in the 1920s, to 29 in recent elections (this is expected to increase to 31 votes in the 2024 election). Unlike the other most populous states, such as California and New York, which are considered safe Democratic states, or Texas, which is considered a safe Republican state, presidential elections in Florida are much more unpredictable. Florida is a southern state, and its majority-white, rural and suburban districts tend to vote in favor of the Republican Party (Republicans have also dominated state elections in recent decades), although, Florida is also home to substantial Hispanic population, and is a popular destination for young workers in the tourism sector and retirees from across the U.S., with these groups considered more likely to vote Democrat. However, the discrepancy between voters of Cuban (58 percent voted Republican) and Puerto Rican (66 percent voted Democrat) origin in the 2020 election shows that these traditional attitudes towards Hispanic voters may need to be re-evaluated.

2000 controversy The 2000 U.S. presidential election is one of the most famous and controversial elections in U.S. history, due to the results from Florida. The election was contested by the Republican Party's George W. Bush and the Democratic Party's Al Gore; by the end of election day, it became clear that Florida's 25 electoral votes would decide the outcome, as neither candidate had surpassed the 270 vote margin needed to win nationwide. While Florida's early results showed Bush in the lead, Gore's share of the results in urban areas then brought their totals close enough to trigger a recount; after a month of recounts and legal proceedings, Bush was eventually declared the winner of Florida by a margin of 537 popular votes (or 0.009 percent). Although Gore did win a plurality of the votes nationwide, Bush had won 271 electoral votes overall, and was named the 43rd President of the United States; this was just one of five elections where the candidate with the most popular votes did not win the election. In the six most recent U.S. presidential elections in Florida, the difference in the share of popular votes between the Republican and Democratic candidates has been just two percent on average.

This statistic shows the number of votes each candidate received in the Republican Party Iowa caucus 2016. The candidate with the highest number of votes was Ted Cruz with 51,666 votes.

U.S. 2016 Elections: Republican candidates - additional information

The Iowa caucuses, the first event of the 2016 Election year, took place on February 1 and yielded some interesting results in both the Democratic and the Republican camps. On one hand, the Democratic caucus has effectively eliminated all presidential hopefuls, except for two, which are running neck and neck – Hillary Clinton, former Secretary of State and New York Senator, and Bernie Sanders, Vermont Senator and former Congressman. The GOP caucus, on the other hand, has helped leveling the field between the different possible frontrunners, while still keeping nine major candidates in the game, namely: Jeb Bush, Ben Carson, Chris Christie, Ted Cruz, Carly Fiorina, Jim Gilmore, John Kasich, Marco Rubio and last but not least Donald Trump.

Although many opinion polls have been showing Trump as the winner in the race for the nomination, he came out second in the Iowa caucus, before Marco Rubio, but after Ted Cruz, who gained the most popular votes. Ted Cruz is preferred by the very conservative faction of Republican voters and scores lowest among moderates, who prefer Trump. Cruz is also most popular among 30 to 44 year-olds, with 31 percent of GOP voters in this age group having elected him on February 1. According to exit polls, Trump’s base tends to be stronger among older voters and among those with the least formal education, while Republican voters with college degrees and postgraduate studies tend to favor Rubio. All three candidates are strong on core GOP issues, such as eliminating immigration and protecting the Second Amendment rights and eliminating gun control.

Three candidates who were believed to have some chances throughout 2015 withdrew after the Iowa event, namely: former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul and former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum. As of February 7, polls show Trump to be the winner of the New Hampshire Republican primary on February 9.

Pennsylvania has taken part in every U.S. presidential election, correctly voting for the nationwide winner in 47 out of 59 elections, giving a success rate of eighty percent. Since 1828, Pennsylvania has voted for the Democratic nominee in twenty elections, and the Republican Party's nominee in 26 elections (including all but one elections from 1860 to 1932). The only time where Pennsylvania did not vote for a major party candidate was in 1912, where it granted its 38 electoral votes to Theodore Roosevelt, who was running as the candidate of the newly-formed Progressive Party. After voting Democrat in all elections between 1992 and 2012, Pennsylvania voted red in 2016, as Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton by less than one percent of the popular vote. In 2020, Joe Biden flipped Pennsylvania blue again by 1.2 percent of the popular vote. Pennsylvania proved to be the decisive state in the week following the 2020 election, as the returns of mail in ballots gradually swung the result in Biden's favor, following a strong early showing from Donald Trump; the development of these results eventually signaled that Joe Biden had (provisionally) obtained the 270 electoral votes needed to win the election, leading all major news outlets to declare him the winner.

Pennsylvanians in office Prior to the 2020 election, James Buchanan is the only U.S. president to have been born in the Keystone State. Several other major party nominees have been born in Pennsylvania, including three of the losing candidates who ran between 1864 and 1884. Although he is more commonly associated with Delaware, Joe Biden's victory in 2020 made him the the second U.S. president to have been born in Pennsylvania, having spent the first ten years of his life in Scranton. Biden will, most likely, want to be remembered more favorably than Buchanan, who is consistently ranked as the worst U.S. president in history. Weakening influence From 1804 until 1964, Pennsylvania had the second-highest allocation of electoral votes in every U.S. presidential election (usually behind New York), with the number peaking at 38 electoral votes between 1912 and 1928. Since then, Pennsylvania's allocation of electoral votes has fallen gradually, and is expected to be just 19 votes in the 2024 election; half of what it was one century previously. The reason for this drop in electoral votes is due Pennsylvanians migrating to other parts of the country, while growing populations across the border and Midwestern states has seen a shift in population distribution across the country. Nonetheless, with 19 electoral votes, Pennsylvania is likely to remain one of the most valuable battleground states in future elections.

Illinois has taken part in 51 U.S. presidential elections since 1820, and has correctly voted for the winning candidate on 42 occasions, giving a success rate of 82 percent. The Prairie State has always voted for a major party candidate, choosing the Democratic-Republican Party's nominees in its first two elections, before voting for the Democratic Party's candidate 25 times, and the Republican candidate 24 times since 1832. After joining the union in 1818, Illinois has generally voted for each party in phases, and has been considered a safe Democrat state for the past three decades. In the 2020 election, the Democratic nominee, Joe Biden, won the popular vote in Illinois by a 17 percent margin. The Land of Lincoln Since 1955, Illinois' state slogan has been "The Land of Lincoln", as a tribute to President Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln was born in Kentucky, but moved to Illinois in his early 20s, where he emerged as a prominent politician and lawyer before ascending to the presidency in 1861. Lincoln is not the only U.S. President to have resided in Illinois when taking office; his successor, Ulysses S. Grant, was an official Illinois resident when he took office in 1869 (although he had not lived there since before the Civil War), and Barack Obama began his legal career in Chicago in the 1980s, before eventually becoming a State Senator in 1997, and a U.S. Senator from Illinois in 2005. Ronald Reagan is the only president to have been born in Illinois, although he moved to California in his twenties and held public office there. A number of losing candidates also resided in or were born in Illinois, including 2016 Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, who was born in Chicago. Electoral votes In the nineteenth century, Illinois' population boomed as Chicago grew to be one of the largest and most industrialized cities on the continent, and the early twentieth century saw over half a million black Americans move to Illinois during the Great Migration. With this population boom, Illinois' designation of electoral votes grew from just three in the 1820s, to 29 between 1912 and 1940; this was the third highest in the country after New York and Pennsylvania. Since the Second World War, changes in the U.S. population distribution has meant that Illinois' share of electoral votes has gradually decreased, standing at twenty votes since 2012, and expected to drop to 18 in the 2024 election.