A guide for measuring whether Republicans or Democrats have the better Election Day

According to the polls, the 2024 election is on a knife's edge. The presidential race is close and will likely be decided by seven battleground states, each of which is itself close in the polls. The U.S. Senate, currently held 51-49 by the Democrats, is poised to flip Republican by a seat or two. The U.S. House, held by the GOP by a historically small margin, could easily flip to the Democrats.

When all the votes are counted, will one party surge with a broad-based wave? It's happened before, for the Republicans in 2010 and 2014 and for the Democrats in 2006 and 2018. Other election years saw more modest shifts toward one party or the other.

Here, we'll set some benchmarks in advance to determine whether 2024 brings a partisan wave, or if it's more like a ripple or a trickle.

For the 11th consecutive election cycle, and for the eighth consecutive campaign cycle in the Times, I have assembled a guide to measuring the size of the wave by one party or the other. We're offering eight factors to measure the size of the partisan wave this year — not just in the presidential race, but also in U.S. Senate and House races, in state legislative elections, in other statewide office elections, and in ballot measures.

After settling on the eight key questions, we established a baseline for the "expected" outcomes, based on current analysis by independent electoral handicappers, including the Cook Political Report, Sabato's Crystal Ball, Inside Elections and U.S. News & World Report. Then we established a sliding scale that awards more credit to the surging party for exceeding the conventional wisdom once the ballots are counted.

After Election Day, we'll report back about which party did better overall.

Here are our categories. For simplicity, we'll orient our scale based on what Democrats or liberals win. (If you prefer looking at it from the GOP's perspective, just flip around the categories.)

The list List includes: Texas, Florida, Maine District 2, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Nebraska District 2, New Hampshire

The list: List includes: Erie County, Pa.; Lackawanna County, Pa.; Northampton County, Pa.; Miami-Dade County, Fla.; Pinellas County, Fla.; Duval County, Fla.; Macomb County, Mich.; Kent County, Mich.; Brown County, Wis.; La Crosse County, Wis.; Washoe County, Nev.; Clark County, Nev.; Maricopa County, Ariz.; Douglas County, Neb.; New Hanover County, N.C.; Fort Bend County, Texas; Tarrant County, Texas.

The list: List includes: Nebraska (Deb Fischer seat), Florida, Texas, Montana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada, Maryland.

Net gain for Republicans: Extremely weak night for Democrats

Competitive chambers are the Alaska House and Senate, the Arizona House and Senate, the Maine House, the Michigan House, the Minnesota House and Senate, the New Hampshire House and Senate, the Pennsylvania House and Senate, and the Wisconsin Assembly.

Republican net gain of 4+ chambers: Very weak night for Democrats

Republican net gain of 1-3 chambers: Weak night for Democrats

No net gain: Neither weak nor strong night for Democrats

Democratic net gain of 1-3 chambers: Moderately strong night for Democrats

Democratic net gain of 4+ chambers: Strong night for Democrats

Competitive and potentially competitive races are:

Gubernatorial seats: Indiana, New Hampshire, Washington state, North Carolina

Attorney general seats: Indiana, North Carolina, Pennsylvania

Secretary of state seats: North Carolina

Lieutenant governor seats: North Carolina

The list: List includes: Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New York, South Dakota.

The list: List includes: Alaska, Missouri, California, Nebraska.