CHRIS CRUCIAL: The 10 states that swung most to Trump ⬆️

PLUS: The Gaetz Report saga continues...

In 61 days, Donald Trump will be sworn in as the 47th president of the United States. I will be here bringing you everything you need to know between now and then — and over his four years as president.

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1. The Trump Movement

You’re probably sick of this chart:

But, it is remarkable. In 48(!) of the 50 states, Donald Trump did better — in terms of the percentage of the vote he won — in 2024 than he did in 2020. (Washington and Utah were the only outliers.)

Which, I think, speaks to the fact that this was — despite Democratic protestations — a sweeping and comprehensive victory for Trump.

David Wasserman, the House editor of the Cook Political Report (and an amazing follow on X), went deeper — looking at the 10 states where Trump’s improved his percentage of the vote the most between 2020 and 2024.

Here’s that list:

1. New York 11.5%

2. New Jersey 10.1%

3. Florida 9.8%

4. Massachusetts 8.7%

5. California 8.4%

6. Texas 8.3%

7. Mississippi 7.7%

8. Rhode Island 7.0%

9. Tennessee 6.5%

10. Illinois 6.4%

A few thoughts:

• It’s not just red states or blue states where Trump did markedly better in 2024. In fact, in a handful of the bluest states in the country — California, Massachusetts, Rhode Island — he did WAY better than he had four years ago.

• All told, Trump improved his margin considerably in 4 states he wound up winning (Florida, Texas, Mississippi and Tennessee) and 6 states where he still lost (New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, California, Rhode Island and Illinois.)

• Geographically, Trump improved most in the Northeast states (NY, NJ, MA, RI) and southern ones (FL, TX, MS and TN). The West Coast and Midwest moved less toward him.

And one bigger thought: Notice how many SWING states are on that list. Zero.

Even though Trump won all 7 swing states in 2024 — after losing 6 of the 7 in 2020 — his margins weren’t big enough this time around to break the top 10 above.

The biggest, uh, swing of the swing states was in Arizona where Trump got 49% in 2020 and 52.2% in 2024 — a 3.2% swing. Here are the others:

Georgia: Trump 2020 49.2%, Trump 2024 50.7% (+1.5%)

Michigan: Trump 2020 47.8% Trump 2024 49.7% (+1.9%)

Nevada: Trump 2020 47.7%, Trump 2024 50.6% (+2.9%)

North Carolina: Trump 2020 49.9%, Trump 2024 50.9% (+1%)

Pennsylvania: Trump 2020 48.8%, Trump 2024 50.4% (+1.6%)

Wisconsin: Trump 2020 48.8%, Trump 2024 49.7% (+.8%)

Which is interesting! In the places where both campaigns spent money — and the candidates spent time — the race moved, on average, 1.6% toward Trump. That’s a minuscule amount especially when compared to the double-digit percentage moves toward Trump in some less competitive states.

What does that tell us? That, if neither campaign communicated — beyond free media — with voters in a state, they were much more likely to move toward Trump. The more the campaigns were engaged, the less movement toward Trump.

I think that reaffirms what we already know: The electorate — especially outside of the swing states — wanted Trump and what he was selling this time around. Or didn’t want Kamala Harris and what she was selling. Or maybe a little of both.

2. The Gaetz Report, continued

The House Ethics Committee met today — for the first time since former Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz was nominated by Donald Trump to be Attorney General.

The committee deadlocked — on partisan lines, natch — on whether to release the report it has compiled over the last few years about allegations that Gaetz engaged in sex with underage girls and used illegal drugs.

In fact, members of the committee couldn’t even agree on whether the report is finished — with Republicans insisting it isn’t and Democrats saying it is.

Ethics chairman Michael Guest said that the committee would meet again on December 5 to consider next steps.

In the wake of that delay, Wisconsin Democratic Rep. Sean Casten and Tennessee Democratic Rep. Steve Cohen moved to force a House floor vote on whether or not to release the report.

Which may or may not happen. As POLITICO reported:

Offering the Casten and Cohen resolutions as privileged questions would bypass committee consideration and Republican leaders’ control of the floor. But it’s not entirely guaranteed that the measures would qualify for those expedited powers.

The presiding officer on Wednesday, Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Fla.), postponed a decision on whether the two resolutions actually qualify as privileged matters. That will be in the hands of Speaker Mike Johnson, in consultation with House parliamentarians.

You can be sure that Republicans will do everything they can to keep release of the Gaetz report from coming to a full floor vote — which would put lots of rank and file members, lots of whom loathe Gaetz personally, in a very tough spot.

Even as the release of the report roils the House, Gaetz spent his day meeting with Senators as part of a charm campaign to try to win them over. He brought Vice President-elect JD Vance with him on Wednesday; Vance was elected to the Senate from Ohio in 2022.

South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, a vocal Trump ally, urged his colleagues to hear Gaetz out before making any decisions.

“He deserves a chance to make his argument why he should be attorney general,” said Graham. “No rubber stamp, no lynch mob.”

3. Sen. Lara Trump?

Momentum — at least among Senate Republicans — appears to be growing for Lara Trump, the daughter-in-law of the incoming president, to be appointed to the Senate seat of Secretary of State nominee Marco Rubio.

“She’d have a lot of access, more than we would, to the White House,” Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville, a vocal Trump ally, told NOTUS. “But she would be a good representative. That’s what you do. You’re representing your state and again, I think that that’d be very beneficial.”

Florida Sen. Rick Scott, who would be Trump’s state mate, has also been encouraging the chatter.

“I think Lara Trump is the right person to replace [Rubio],” he said on NewsNation Tuesday. “He’s going to be hard to replace. I met her back when she worked at E Network and she is a hard worker; she is committed.”

Scott added that he believed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis would pick Trump “because he knows she is clearly qualified.”

Prior to her time as co-chair of the Republican National Committee in this election, Lara Trump had worked for the TV show “Inside Edition “ from 2012 to 2016. Since her father-in-law began running for president, she has been involved with those campaigns.

Lara Trump is a native of Wilmington, North Carolina — and considered running for the Senate seat there in 2022.

Aside from Scott and Tuberville, Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley and Alabama Sen Katie Britt have encouraged DeSantis to pick Trump.

In a series of recent interviews, she has made clear she would be interested in the appointment. “If I’m asked to serve in the capacity of the United States Senate, it’s something I’d consider,” she said Monday.

DeSantis, who lost to Donald Trump in the 2024 primary, has said nothing about which way he is leaning with the pick. He has only announced that he plans to make an announcement by early January.

4. “Politics Aside”

I spent the day filming a new episode of my sports and politics show — “Politics Aside with Chris Cillizza.”

Today I interviewed Tom McMillen, the former Maryland Congressman AND former NBA hooper. Fun McMillen fact: He deferred his first year in the NBA because he got a Rhodes scholarship — and spent that years studying at Oxford!

Here’s me measuring McMillen’s height (he’s 6’11”!!!).

There are also some new clips from the “Politics Aside” episode — on hockey! — that first aired earlier this week. This is my favorite — where Minnesota Rep. Pete Stauber shoots hockey pucks at me (yes, I put on the goalie pads):

You can watch each new episode of “Politics Aside” on Monumental Sports Network or the Monumental Plus app. Here’s how you get it.

NOTABLE QUOTABLE

“I don’t want to see your botched, cheap hooker-inspired boob job on my television. Can we introduce a bill to bar that?” — Communications operative Natalie Johnson to South Carolina Rep. Nancy Mace. Related: Johnson spent 9 months as Mace’s communications director in 2021.

ONE GOOD CHART

Donald Trump won 312 electoral votes in 2024. That’s more than Joe Biden got in 2020 (306) and Trump himself got in 2016 (306). Here’s a look back at the electoral college vote shares for the two parties going back to 1960.

SONG OF THE DAY

I went down a Bon Iver rabbit hole on YouTube today. And I kept coming back to this video — in which he covers “I Can’t Make You Love Me” by Bonnie Raitt.

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