Whether the GOP has maintained its Electoral College advantage could determine how close the Biden vs. Trump contest really is — and who wins in the end. Former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden. Former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden.NBC News; Getty Images April 7, 2024, 5:00 PM +06 By Mark Murray There are two scenarios that could explain where the 2024 election stands right now. In one, President Joe Biden is locked in something close to a 50-50 contest with former President Donald Trump. In the other, Biden is trailing by more — maybe much more — than the national polls suggest. The answer depends largely on whether Trump and Republicans have maintained the advantage in the Electoral College that they held in the last two presidential elections. Steve Kornacki maps the road to 270 at start of the campaign 04:58 In 2016, Democrat Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by more than 2 percentage points — but Trump’s performance among certain demographics and in certain states meant he defeated her in the Electoral College, 306 to 232. (Because of “faithless” electors, the final history-book margin later changed to 304 to 227.) In 2020, Biden bested Trump in the popular vote by 4.5 percentage points, getting him the same number of Electoral College votes Trump won four years earlier — 306. And if that trend carries over to 2024, Biden might have to win the popular vote by 5 points or more to get the 270-plus Electoral College votes needed to win the presidency. But a two-election trend is no guarantee of future results. And there’s another school of thought about 2024 that the GOP’s Electoral College edge may not be as pronounced, as Trump has made gains with Black and Latino voters, including in states like California and New York that won’t come close to deciding the presidential election. Even slightly better margins for Trump in those big, blue states could bring the national vote and the tipping-point state vote into closer alignment. The question, however, is how sizable that decrease might be — if there is any. It’s an important piece of information to help gauge what the national polls really mean right now, but it’s also shrouded in mystery. “With Trump’s improvements among Hispanic and Black voters, the pro-GOP bias may decline by 1 to 2 points — but it won’t be erased,” said David Wasserman, senior editor and elections analyst at the Cook Political Report with Amy Walter. “In other words, I think Trump could lose the popular vote by 2 points in November and still have an excellent chance of carrying Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Nevada — which is why I view Trump as a pretty obvious favorite at the moment,” Wasserman added. The case for the GOP maintaining its Electoral College edge When political analysts discuss Electoral College bias, they’re referring to the difference between the margins in the popular vote and in the “tipping point” state — that is, the decisive state that carried the victorious candidate across the 270-electoral vote threshold needed to win the presidency. Over much of the last 70 years, the tipping point states have closely tracked to the popular vote. In 2012, for example, Barack Obama won the popular vote by almost 4 percentage points, and he carried his tipping point state, Colorado, by more than 5 points. But that changed in the Trump era, when the Electoral College bias grew to the highest level since 1948 — in the Republican Party’s direction. Part of the explanation was Trump’s particularly strong performance among white working-class voters in the Midwest and Rust Belt battleground states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Another explanation was Democrats’ overperformance in states like California and New York, which aren’t key to deciding presidential contests in our current political landscape.