Chapter 20 Exercises

These exercises ask you to apply the electoral-machinery frameworks of Chapter 20 to current data, your own state, and analytical scenarios. They are designed for both individual study and discussion-section use. Some require Internet access; some can be done from the chapter alone.

Exercise 1: Simulate the Electoral College math for a hypothetical 2028 race

Open 270toWin.com (or a printed Electoral College map). Construct three scenarios for the 2028 presidential election:

Scenario A: A Democratic baseline. The Democratic nominee carries the 19 states-plus-DC that Biden won in 2020 by 5+ points: California (54), New York (28), Illinois (19), New Jersey (14), Massachusetts (11), Washington (12), Maryland (10), Colorado (10), Minnesota (10), Oregon (8), Connecticut (7), New Mexico (5), Hawaii (4), New Hampshire (4), Maine 1st CD (1), Rhode Island (4), Delaware (3), Vermont (3), DC (3). Add up the total. Is the Democratic nominee already at 270, or does the nominee need to flip additional states?

Scenario B: A Republican baseline. The Republican nominee carries the states that Trump won by 5+ points in 2024: states like Florida, Texas, Ohio, Indiana, North Carolina, Iowa, the Plains and Mountain West states, the Deep South, Maine 2nd CD, Nebraska's 1st and 3rd CDs. Add up the total.

Scenario C: The battleground states determine the outcome. Take your candidate of choice from above and compute: how many of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, Arizona, Nevada (totaling 77 EV) does the candidate need to clear 270?

For each scenario, name the tipping-point state — the state whose electoral votes are decisive given the rest of the path. Discuss: which scenarios are most plausible? Which require unlikely demographic shifts?

Exercise 2: Pull the most recent generic-ballot poll

Go to FiveThirtyEight (now operating as ABC News' polling tracker), Real Clear Politics, or Silver Bulletin. Find the generic congressional ballot polling average. Note:

  • The current polling margin (D+X or R+X)
  • How it has shifted in the last 6 months
  • The 2026 midterm prediction implied by the current margin (using the rule of thumb in the chapter)

Compare your finding to the rule of thumb from Section V: D+5 → roughly even House outcomes; D+8 → small Democratic gain; R+3 → small Republican gain. If the current generic ballot is, for example, R+3, that implies a Republican House gain in 2026 of about 25 seats. How does that compare to your prior expectation?

Caution: the generic ballot becomes more predictive as the election nears. A poll 18 months out is suggestive, not predictive. Note the date of the polling average you're using.

Exercise 3: Analyze your state's primary calendar position

Look up: - What date did your state's 2024 presidential primary or caucus take place? - Was it before or after Super Tuesday? - Did your state's vote materially affect the 2024 nominating outcomes for either party? - Did the candidates campaign in your state, or skip it?

Then consider: what would change if your state moved its primary to two weeks before Iowa? What would change if your state moved its primary to June (after Super Tuesday)? What does this tell you about the structural advantages of early-state status?

For 2028, the calendar is in flux. What is the date currently scheduled (or proposed) for your state's primary? Has your state's elected officials advocated for an earlier date?

Exercise 4: Steel-man the Electoral College — both directions

Write two short essays of about 350 words each.

Essay 1: Steel-man the case for keeping the Electoral College. Use Section II's "strongest case for keeping" as a starting point. Address: federalism, geographic balance, anti-fraud incentives, stability, and originalism. Include a concrete example of how the system has produced a desirable outcome in a recent election. Do not strawman the opposing view; treat the alternative as serious.

Essay 2: Steel-man the case against the Electoral College. Use Section II's "strongest case against" as a starting point. Address: departure from one-person-one-vote, allowance of minority winners, narrow concentration of campaign attention, swing-state distortion, and the federalism counter-argument. Include a concrete example of how the system has produced a problematic outcome. Do not strawman the opposing view.

In a final paragraph, name what you think is the single strongest argument on each side. Resist the temptation to identify which side you find more persuasive; the exercise is to write the strongest possible version of each, regardless of your conclusions.

Exercise 5: Democracy Audit — your state's most recent presidential primary

Conduct a Democracy Audit on your state's most recent presidential primary (probably the 2024 primary, possibly an open primary or caucus event for your party).

Document:

  1. Date and rules. When was the primary held? Was it open, closed, or semi-closed? Did your party use a caucus or a primary in your state?
  2. Turnout. Look up turnout numbers from your state's secretary of state. Compare to (a) the previous presidential primary in 2020, and (b) the general election turnout in your state in 2024. The primary will be much lower; calculate the ratio.
  3. Outcome. Who won the primary in your state? By what margin? Did the result affect the national race?
  4. Coverage. Search local news from the week of your state's primary. How many candidates campaigned in your state? Did they hold rallies, debates, or media events? Or was the state largely ignored?
  5. Reflection. Based on the data above, was your state's primary meaningfully democratic in the sense of giving voters a voice in the nomination? Or was the result determined by earlier states (Iowa, NH, SC, Super Tuesday) such that your state's vote was a formality?

Exercise 6: Compare the 2020 and 2024 Electoral College maps

Create a side-by-side comparison of the 2020 and 2024 electoral maps. Use 270toWin or a similar tool. For each of the 50 states + DC, record:

  • The 2020 Biden margin
  • The 2024 Trump margin
  • The 2020 → 2024 swing
  • Whether the swing was "with the national environment" (Trump did 1.5 points better nationally) or larger/smaller

Identify the five states that swung most heavily Republican (relative to the 1.5-point national environment shift). Identify the five states that swung least Republican (or even Democratic). Compare your list to common political-science narratives about coalitional shifts: did Hispanic-heavy states swing more? Did urban states with large Black populations swing differently than urban states with small Black populations? Use the data to assess the claims.

Exercise 7: Map the 2026 Senate landscape

The 2026 Senate election (Class II) puts up 33 seats. Look up:

  • Which Republican incumbents are defending in states that voted for Harris in 2024?
  • Which Democratic incumbents are defending in states that voted for Trump in 2024?
  • What are the rated competitive races as of the date you're doing this exercise (use Cook Political Report, Sabato's Crystal Ball, or Inside Elections)?

For one race that interests you: research the candidate fundraising totals (use OpenSecrets), the state's recent polling, and the partisan lean of the state (Cook PVI).

Write a short analysis of whether the race is likely to be a pickup opportunity for the out-party, a hold for the incumbent's party, or genuinely uncertain.

Exercise 8: Read an election-night call backwards

Pick a state from the 2024 presidential election. Identify when the major networks called it. (Decision-desk timing is documented at the time and in subsequent retrospectives.) Then look up:

  • What was the partisan composition of the early-counted ballots in that state? (Election-day in-person typically Republican; mail ballots variable by state.)
  • Did the leader on first count match the eventual winner? Or did the lead change as more ballots were counted?
  • Was the change a "blue shift," a "red shift," or no shift?
  • What state-specific rules contributed to the counting order? (Pre-Election-Day mail processing? Provisional ballot rules? Military and overseas ballots?)

Compare your state's counting pattern to a state with very different rules (Pennsylvania vs. Florida is a good comparison). Discuss: how do state laws shape what voters see on election night? Should the public expect to know the result by midnight on Election Day, or should the public expect counting to take days?

Exercise 9 (optional): The North Carolina question

North Carolina has been close in every presidential election since 2008. It has not flipped to a Democrat since Obama. Research:

  • The 2024 presidential margin in North Carolina (Trump's margin)
  • The 2024 gubernatorial race (Democrat Josh Stein won; what was the margin?)
  • The 2024 Council of State and other down-ballot races

Why does North Carolina produce split-ticket results (Republican president, Democratic governor)? Use Chapter 20's frameworks (geographic composition, primary type, candidate quality, generic ballot) to construct a hypothesis. Test it against the data you can find. What does the answer suggest about whether North Carolina is a true battleground or a slowly Republican-trending state with episodic Democratic candidate-quality wins?

Exercise 10 (optional): Reading the campaign-finance picture

Use OpenSecrets (opensecrets.org) to look up the 2024 cycle for one Senate or competitive House race that interests you. Document:

  • Total amount raised by each candidate.
  • Top five sources of contributions for each candidate (PACs, individuals, parties, party committees).
  • Total spending by outside groups (super PACs, 501(c)(4)s, party-aligned independent expenditure committees) on each side.
  • The ratio of in-state vs. out-of-state contributions for each candidate.

Then assess: was the race a competitive money race (similar totals on both sides), an asymmetric money race (one side dramatically outraised), or did outside-group spending make the difference? How does the campaign-finance picture relate to the eventual margin?

Connection to Chapter 34: this exercise is a preview of the depth treatment of money in politics. Save your work — you will return to this race in Chapter 34's exercises.

Exercise 11 (optional): The 2026 Senate map exercise

The 2026 Senate election (Class II) puts up 33 seats. Two seats stand out as likely competitive: Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina), both Republican incumbents in states that are demographically less Republican than the median Republican-held state.

For one of these races, identify:

  • The 2020 result for the same seat (the previous time it was contested)
  • The state's most recent presidential margin
  • The current generic ballot
  • The incumbent's announced challengers (as of when you do the exercise)
  • Any relevant local issues

Make a prediction. Then check current ratings from Cook, Sabato, and Inside Elections. Is your prediction consistent with the consensus, or do you see it differently?

The point of this exercise is to practice the analytical discipline of integrating multiple inputs (national environment, state lean, candidate quality, money) into a single race assessment. The exercise prepares you for Chapter 21, where you will dig into how campaigns translate these factors into operational decisions.

Submitting these exercises

Format: Markdown or PDF, organized by exercise number. For exercises requiring data, cite your sources by URL and "as of" date. Recommended length: 4–6 single-spaced pages total for all exercises (somewhat longer if you complete the optional exercises). The point is the analysis, not the volume — a tight 5-page submission with clear sourcing and original interpretation is better than a sprawling 10-page submission with weak analysis.

For instructors using these exercises: any subset of 5–6 produces a substantive assignment. Exercises 1, 4, 5, and 6 work well as a core set; the others can be assigned for differentiated student interest. Exercises 4 (steel-manning the Electoral College) and 5 (the Democracy Audit) work well as graded discussion-section assignments where the writing is read aloud and steel-manning is critiqued by classmates.