538's State Benchmarks

Looks like a tool that could be used to validate the projections that the networks are making as the night progresses.

quote:

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The benchmarks estimate what percentage of the vote Democrats or Republicans would need in each county for a statewide race to be roughly tied. That means if a candidate is performing consistently better than their party’s benchmark as we get a meaningfully large number of returns (keeping in mind that the partisan split from early returns may shift significantly as the count continues), it’s a decent sign that contender is on track to come out ahead in the final results

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quote:

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How this works: 538’s county-level benchmarks for the 2024 elections estimate what percentage of the vote Democrats or Republicans would need in each county for each statewide (or district-wide, in the cases of Maine and Nebraska) contest to be roughly tied. That means if a candidate is performing consistently better than their party’s benchmark as we get a meaningfully large number of votes tallied, it’s a decent sign that they are on track to come out ahead in the final results (though we also have to be mindful of returns coming in nonuniformly). The benchmarks for each individual county bring together two main pieces of information: (1) the estimated share of the vote for each party in that county and (2) the proportion of a state’s (or district’s) total vote contributed by voters from that county.

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Something to piddle with as the returns drag out into the night.

538