Numerically, Democrats do better in Nevada, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, and Republicans in Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina.
In less than 2 months, millions of Americans will go to the polls to choose the country’s new president. This year, around 240 million are eligible to vote – voting is not mandatory there.
The United States has a different electoral system. Unlike other countries, the candidate with the highest total number of votes does not necessarily win, but rather the one who wins the most votes. number of delegates.
To understand the challenges that Kamala Harris (democrat) and Donald Trump (Republican) will face in November, it is necessary to clarify some points:
- each US state has a number of delegates, calculated proportionally to its population and representation in the House and Senate;
- to win the election, at least 270 of the 538 delegates at stake are needed
- of the 50 US states, in 48 (and the District of Columbia) the candidate with the most votes wins all the Electoral College delegates from the region. In Maine and Nebraska they are divided proportionally to the number of votes.
However, the keys to the White House can be defined by 7 Statesthe so-called “swing states”, or Pendulum states.
The term refers to regions in which voters sometimes vote Republican and sometimes Democrat. In other words, there is no clear party loyalty. This is different from historically aligned states, such as Californiawhich has voted for a Democrat since 1992or Alabama, where the votes have been going to the Republican Party for 44 years.
They are also where White House candidates focus their campaigns in order to win votes from divided voters. “swing states” vary according to each election.
Averages made by the research aggregator Real Clear Politics on Sunday night (September 16, 2024) show the Democrat numerically ahead in 4 of the 7 “swing states” (Nevada, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania). Trump does better in Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina. But the difference between the two is so small that the situation is a technical tie in all of them.
There is no exact definition of the criteria that identify a “swing state” and experts often disagree about which territories can be defined in this way. However, some points are considered for the definition. They are:
- analysis of electoral history: whether the State elected a Democrat in one election and a Republican in another in recent years;
- if the votes were very close and the winning candidate in the territory won by a small margin;
- opinion polls and voting intentions that indicate similar voter support for the Democratic and Republican parties.
Arizona, for example, fits point 2. In 2020, Biden conquered the region’s delegates by a small margin (10,457 votes). It was the first time since 1996 that the state opted for a Democratic president.
In Georgia, it was similar. Biden won by a narrow margin. But there is another point that stands out in this year’s elections: one-third of the state’s population is made up of African-Americans (one of the highest proportions of black residents in the US). In 2020, this group helped the current president get elected.
Biden’s approval, however, it fell this group. The Democrat’s withdrawal and the rise of Kamala Harris – who, if elected, will be the first black woman to lead the country – could once again secure support for the Democrats in the state.
In Michigan, everything is also up for grabs. The state was one of the “responsible” states for electing the last two presidents (Trump in 2016 and Biden in 2020). However, the Democrat’s support for Israel could make things more difficult for Kamala Harris – who also adopts the same discourse regarding the war in the Gaza Strip.
Michigan has the highest proportion of Arab-Americans in the United States. The Democrats’ conduct toward Palestinians could sway voters in the state toward Donald Trump this time around.
Nevada voted Democrat in the last election. However, recent polls show Kamala and Trump with small differences in electoral preference in the state.
Survey from the Fox News shows the Democrat with 50% of the votes against the Republican’s 48%. The two are tied within the survey’s margin of error of 3 percentage points.
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