America’s 60th presidential election — potentially one of the most important (and contentious) in our history — will be conducted in 2024. Presidential Election Handbook 1789-2024 (by G. Scott Thomas) sets the stage for this momentous contest.

The opening chapter features a 33-page preview of the 2024 campaign, focusing on 24 key trends that will determine the outcome. The next section offers a thorough review of all 59 presidential elections between 1789 and 2020, laying out the results of primary elections, party conventions, and general elections, as well as specialized statistics unique to this book.

The final three chapters summarize the career stats of 308 presidential candidates, election-by-election results in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, and 173 lists of extreme accomplishments — the most, the fewest, the largest, the smallest, the oldest, the youngest — throughout the history of presidential politics.

——————————

What Presidential Election Handbook has to say about the 2024 campaign

On the presidential nomination process: “If you wished to devise a lengthy, confusing, largely worthless system to choose presidential nominees, you would be hard-pressed to invent anything worse than the current arrangement.”

On the tenor of a possible Biden-Trump rematch: “The bad news for all Americans is that rematches tend to be unusually vitriolic.”

On the level of voter disenchantment: “It is easy to imagine the turnout rate declining from 2020’s peak if Trump and Biden grace the ballot again.”

On the states that will be battlegrounds in 2024: “We can be sure of this: Only seven states meet a pair of stipulations that stamp them as true battlegrounds.”

On the anticipated margin: “The stage is set for another nail-biting campaign, continuing the trend that began in the 1990s. It shows no signs of abating.”

On the expected victor: “As for the name of the eventual winner? Well, you won’t find any guesses here.”

On an important caveat: “The best rule is a very simple one: Expect the unexpected.”