Mary Lou Masters:

A new political forecast released Thursday argues that the 2024 general election could come down to four states — Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

The four “toss-ups” and their 56 Electoral College votes make for a “very narrow playing field” in 2024, which The Cook Political Report views as being another matchup between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, according to author Amy Walter. Whether a third-party ticket is present, as well as the sway of suburban, moderate and Latino voters, will be key in determining the outcome of these battleground states.

Of the remaining states that are considered lean, likely or solid to vote for either major party, the Republicans will likely pick up 235 Electoral College votes, while the Democrats could notch 247. Michigan and Nevada lean Democrat, and Maine, Minnesota, New Hampshire and a single-vote district in Nebraska are likely blue; North Carolina leans Republican, with Florida, Texas and a single-vote district in Maine likely voting red.

“North Carolina is to Democrats what Nevada is to Republicans: tantalizingly competitive, but still just out of reach,” Walter wrote.

In the 2020 election, Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania were among the closest states in the country. Biden beat Trump in Georgia by 0.2 points, in Arizona by 0.3 points, in Wisconsin by 0.7 points and in Pennsylvania by 1.2 points, according to Politico.

There are also several states that voted Republican and Democrat from 2008 to 2020 that the report argues are no longer competitive — Indiana, Iowa and Ohio, with Florida becoming significantly less of a battleground. Other states of that category continue to be competitive, like Michigan and North Carolina, as well as single-vote districts in Maine and Nebraska.

Sabato’s Crystal Ball, from the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, came out with its 2024 Electoral College predictions in late June, and similarly argued the general will likely be a rematch between Biden and Trump. The four states Sabato’s Crystal Ball characterized as “toss-ups” slightly differed than that of The Cook Political Report, as it tapped Nevada as one of the battlegrounds instead of Pennsylvania.

The RealClearPolitics (RCP) averages for a 2024 Republican and Democratic primary, based on the most recent polling, suggests Trump and Biden are leading the respective fields 52.4% and 63.2%, respectively. The RCP also indicates Biden would win a general election against Trump by nearly 1 point.

When you are a swing state, you get attention like this, from Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel:

Politics is a game of inches, especially in key swing states like Wisconsin. Over the last 23 years, eleven political races in the Badger State have been decided by 30,000 votes or less — a tiny slice of the voting public.

As Republicans look ahead to making Joe Biden a one-term president, beating liberal senators like Tammy Baldwin, and protecting the House in 2024, it’s more important than ever that we turn out every vote possible. That means not only showing up to the polls on election day, but voting early too, either by mail or in-person.

Earlier this week, the Republican National Committee (RNC) announced that Wisconsin will be the launching pad for our nationwide “Bank Your Vote” campaign, the RNC’s initiative to educate, encourage and activate our voters to take advantage of voting early.

When the Packers or Badgers play, they don’t wait until the fourth quarter to start scoring points. If they did, they’d probably lose every game.

We have to apply that same mentality to voting, and our Wisconsin Bank Your Vote program will do just that. This operation will leverage the full infrastructure of the RNC, Republican Party of Wisconsin, and our historic investments in our cutting-edge data and political ground game to make sure that Wisconsinites know how, when and where to vote early.

We will leverage all of our tools to make sure we’re targeting the right voters at the right time and giving them what they need to securely cast their early votes. Personally, I prefer voting on Election Day, and I know many Republican voters feel the same way. However, nothing is more important than electing conservatives, and that will only happen if we play by the rules we’re given and take full advantage of every possible voting window.

This is too important to get wrong: Wisconsin simply cannot afford four more years of Joe Biden, Tony Evers and Tammy Baldwin. Under the Biden-Baldwin agenda, the average Wisconsin household is losing nearly $10,000 annually. Thanks to Biden’s failed economic policies, Wisconsin households and businesses have been slapped by the highest inflation in 40 years, a supply chain crisis, and a decline in real wages. More than half of Wisconsin residents (52%) live paycheck-to-paycheck, regularly spending equal to or more than their income every month.

Meanwhile, Biden’s border crisis is flooding Wisconsin communities with deadly fentanyl. Wisconsin opioid deaths broke a record in 2021. State capital Milwaukee recently saw record opioid overdoses (17 deaths in 4 days), a jaw-dropping string of deaths that brutally illustrates the deadly consequences of an open southern border.

We have a simple path to stopping this rampant chaos and decline: out-voting Democrats at the polls in November. Our Bank Your Vote campaign will make that possible.

Key Republican leaders in Wisconsin are joining the effort: our Bank Your Vote Wisconsin Leadership Team features Senator Ron Johnson, Wisconsin’s entire Republican congressional delegation, RPW Chair Brian Schimming and the rest of the RNC Wisconsin team, and several other key conservative figures.

Crucially, Banking Your Vote goes hand-in-hand with Protecting The Vote. The RNC has made an unprecedented yearslong investment in Wisconsin election integrity. That means winning key legal cases like Teigen v. WEC, which clamped down on unattended ballot drop boxes in the Badger State, and filling over 5,000 poll worker shifts across Wisconsin in the 2022 midterms. We have taken the appropriate steps to make sure that folks in Wisconsin can cast their votes with security and integrity.

Wisconsin: Bank Your Vote to beat Biden and Baldwin.