Election Day is less than a month away the electoral duel between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump appears to be a head-to-head at the last vote. The vice president has a modest lead nationally, 3.4%, according to The Hill’s latest average. However, considering the Electoral College system – which provides that electors are elected in each state, in numbers proportional to the population, who will then vote for the president – they will be the seven key states to decide the outcome of the electionsdetermining which candidate will reach the ‘magic number’ of 270 electoral votes that the White House delivers.
According to the latest averages, Harris is ahead in four of these states, Trump in three, but these are minimal differences, less than points, in some cases less than a percentage point. A fierce electoral battle is therefore expected in the coming weeks, with campaigns spending hundreds of millions of dollars in key states. Here is the situation state by state.
Arizona
Trump has a minimal advantage of 0.8% in this key state where, being on the border, the migrant issue, for which Trump promises an iron fist, is central. According to a recent CNN poll, the former president has 50%, against Harris’ 34%, regarding policy on migrants. Four years ago, Arizona was one of the narrowest states, with Joe Biden winning by 0.3% after a long period of contestation by Trump.
Georgia
Trump is also ahead with 0.7% in the state that Biden won in 2020 with just 12,670 votes, becoming the first Democrat to win the presidential elections in Georgia since 1992, Bill Clinton’s first victory. The former president had a much larger lead but it shrunk after Harris replaced Biden in the race for the White House in the state where the vote of African Americans, who make up 33% of the population, is crucial.
Michigan
Harris’ advantage in the state was minimal, 0.2%, where immediately after the convention at the end of August she had managed to obtain a 2-point advantage. According to some, the worsening situation in the Middle East is contributing to its decline in the polls, since 200,000 Arab Americans live in the Mid-West state and have threatened not to support the Democrats due to the support given to Israel by the Biden administration. Four years ago Biden won the state by 150,000 votes and in 2016 Trump by less than 11,000.
Nevada
Harris has her largest advantage here, two points, due to the fact that the state has increasingly shifted towards the Democrats in recent election cycles. The last Republican to win the presidential elections twice was George W. Bush. In August the Democrat received the endorsement of the influential Culinary Workers Union Local 226, which represents workers in the hotel sector in Las Vegas and Reno to whom both candidates have promised measures to reduce tax on tips.
North Carolina
Harris has a 0.8% lead in the state that was the only key state Trump won four years ago. However, historical precedents seem to favor the former president: Barack Obama was the only Democrat to win in the state since 1976. And he succeeded in 2008 but not in 2012. But the fact that 22% of the population is African American and a massive turnout could be determined for the African American candidate. Also in favor of the Democrats is the fact that North Carolina is among the key states with the highest number of graduates, a group that in recent years has tended to vote Dem.
Pennsylvania
The Keystone State appears this year as the state to win to get to the White House, thanks to its 19 electoral votes, the largest tally among all the key states. Harris is currently ahead by 0.8%, but a new Trump rally is expected today in Butler, the place where the former president escaped an attempted assassination on July 13th. To confirm how crucial the victory in this state is, Obama will arrive in Pennsylvania in support of Harris in the next few days and will hold a rally in Pittsburgh on October 10th.
Wisconsin
Harris has a relatively larger lead, 1.3%, but unfortunately for her, polls in Wisconsin have been proven wrong several times in the state. In 2016 they had Clinton leading by 6 points, but Trump won by a narrow margin. And even four years ago Biden was ahead by 7 points, but in the end he won by the skin of his teeth. Finally, it should be noted that even in this state, in recent weeks the Democrat has seen the advantage obtained after the convention, which in Wisconsin had reached four points, reduce in a worrying manner.
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