On November 5, 50 states and the District of Columbia vote, but Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump are competing for the votes of only a few: Arizona, Michigan, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Georgia, Nevada and Pennsylvania. It’s the seven Swing States that this year, they will have the last word to tip the electoral balance. It is not the popular vote that elects one of the two candidates to the White House, but rather the votes of the Electoral College, which is the body that ultimately elects the president.
What does it take to win the presidency?
To win the U.S. presidency, at least 270 of the 538 Electoral College votes distributed among the 50 states and the District of Columbia are required proportionally. Even though we already know what color most states will be dyed on November 5, Swing States We don’t yet know what will happen. It is for this reason that Harris and Trump focused all their efforts on the votes of the three states of the country. industrial belt (Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania) and the four of the so-called solar belt (Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina).
The “blue wall”
Among this small group, Pennsylvania is the most decisive state of the seven because it is the one which distributes the most votes in the Electoral College: 19. Now, even if Pennsylvania is necessary to reach the White House, Harris wins here. guarantee victory. He also needs to win in the two other states of the industrial belt: Michigan and Wisconsin. The Midwestern trio is known as blue wall, because since he voted for Bill Clinton in 1992, the Democrats – whose color is blue – have always won.
Trump broke that blue wall in 2016, taking the three states that Biden then picked up in 2020, albeit by very tight margins. In Pennsylvania, it was about 80,000 votes.
Harris needs Nebraska
Apart from the blue wallHarris needs the votes of a state that is not considered key: Nebraska. This state, along with Maine, are the only two places that do not apply the logic of winner takes all –he who wins takes all–, but rather they distribute the Electoral College votes proportionally.
If Harris can win the Omaha, Nebraska congressional district, he will be victorious. blue wall and wins in the rest of the states that are already projected to go blue, the vice president can win the White House without needing to win any of the other four Swing States which belong to solar belt. The latest polls in Michigan and Wisconsin are more favorable to Harris, while in Pennsylvania it’s practically a technical tie.
Support for Israel and Michigan
Surveys are good indicators, but there is always room for errors or surprises. Michigan is where the majority of the country’s Arab population is concentrated and, for example, some cities, such as Dearborn, have a mayor of Arab origin. The Joe Biden administration’s handling of the Gaza war eroded the president’s popularity in Michigan when he was a Democratic candidate, and although Harris has shown greater sensitivity to the suffering of Gazans , his position regarding military support for Israel has not changed one millimeter.
The disdain for the Palestinian community at the Chicago Convention didn’t help either, and while some members of the Uncommit movement will end up voting for Harris, there are also many others who won’t vote for her. They won’t do it for Trump either, but vote leakage to other third parties could have unexpected results. Last week, at a rally in Michigan, various Muslim community leaders took the stage to demand a vote for Trump.
What if Harris lost Pennsylvania?
If Harris loses in Pennsylvania, she will have to win in at least two states in the state. solar belt. Georgia and North Carolina share 16 votes each, so winning one of those two and then winning Arizona (11) or Nevada (6) could be enough. If instead of losing Pennsylvania, Harris loses Michigan or Wisconsin, it will be a little easier for him, but he will still need at least one state in the world. solar belt.
The most likely so far has been North Carolina, but as poll aggregator Fivethirtyeight shows, Trump is already managing to gain ground with a lead of 1.4 percentage points. On the other hand, Nevada should be closer (and therefore more feasible), although Trump is still ahead by 0.4 percentage points.
The Harris campaign ran in every key state, although it invested the most time (and money) in the United States. blue wall During the month of September, one in four dollars spent by Democrats on advertising went to the three Midwestern states, according to AdImpact.
The sun belt
Trump has fewer paths to the White House than Harris. The Republican must once again break the blue wall to guarantee victory, even if this time he would only need to remove one of the three bricks that make it up and, for the moment, it is in Pennsylvania that he has the better chance of achieving this. . If he wins here in North Carolina and Georgia, he will only get 270 electoral college votes. Then there’s Arizona, where Democrats won for the first time since 1996 and by a slim margin of 10,000 votes.
The Latino vote in Arizona was crucial to Biden making the historically Republican state a Republican state. swing state, But the latest polls show that Trump managed to distance himself from Harris precisely thanks to the Latino vote. However, it remains to be seen what consequences the racist remarks made during the Republican rally organized at Madison Square Garden last Sunday could have.
Harris is losing ground among Latinos but also among black voters, particularly men under 30. Georgia is one of the states in the country that is home to one of the largest African American communities. This, coupled with his Republican voting history, predicts tougher territory for the Democrat than the Republican. In this scenario, Pennsylvania also continues to emerge as the most decisive state for the mogul.
Everything goes through Pennsylvania
As Pennsylvania is the state that will apparently have the final say in the election, the final election result may not be known that evening. State law says the counting of absentee ballots cannot begin until polls close on Election Day. Pennsylvania is not the only state following this model.
The reliability of the vote counting system is also highlighted. Trump’s final month of campaigning has been responsible for once again raising the specter of voter fraud, so that verifying every single vote could further lengthen the count. It also cannot be ruled out that after the vote, Republicans will file complaints against the vote count. Trump has already done this in Pennsylvania with provisional votes, which are not counted until the lawsuit is resolved.
The maximum deadline for certifying the number of votes obtained by each candidate is November 11. The next key date will be December 17, when the 538 electors will meet to elect the president and vice-president. Then, it will be January 6 for both houses of Congress to vote for each state representative and certify the winner.
Historically, these were symbolic processes, but after Trump launched the assault on the Capitol during the certification of January 6, 2021, Washington has already strengthened security for this date.
