In the United States, the 2024 presidential election is shaping up to be historic. First of all, because of the setting: by withdrawing on July 21, Joe Biden has relaunched a second campaign, shorter than ever, while Americans are called to the polls in two months, on Tuesday, November 5. Kamala Harris, appointed to replace the outgoing president on August 22, is ahead of the Republican candidate, Donald Trump, in national polls.
But the risks of this dynamic losing strength, as well as the particularities of the American electoral system, do not in any way guarantee victory for the Democratic camp. The televised debate organised on Tuesday 10 September between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump on the public channel ABC will be of great importance and the suspense could last until the evening of 5 November.
What are the dynamics in the swing states?
National polls reflect the dynamics of American public opinion, but they do not prejudge the outcome of the election. Indeed, since American elections are conducted indirectly, with electors appointed in each of the states, it is more relevant to focus on local power relations in the country. swing states (“pivotal” or “key” states) that are likely to influence the election.
Former Republican President Donald Trump, who largely dominated the polls until early summer, is now being overtaken, or even trailing, in several of these crucial states by Kamala Harris.
Since early August, the Democratic candidate has maintained a slight but stable lead over Donald Trump in Michigan and Wisconsin, two states in the “Rust Belt” (in reference to industrial decline) that Donald Trump had managed to snatch from the Democrats in 2016.
The situation is, however, more complicated in the other five (Arizona, North Carolina, Georgia, Nevada and Pennsylvania). However, Kamala Harris fared much better than the voting intentions collected by Joe Biden in the spring, and quickly caught up with the lead taken by Trump.
Which categories of voters support Harris or Trump?
In demographic terms, it is not surprising that it is among young voters, women and the black and Hispanic electorate where Kamala Harris regains the greatest voting intention, according to polls conducted in six of these seven crucial states by the New York Times/Siena College in May and then in August.
Surprisingly, the vice president is doing better than current President Joe Biden in every category, including among male voters and those over 64, a sign of the outgoing president’s penalizing unpopularity. The candidate even gets, according to these polls of voting intention, win back Democratic voters lost to Joe Biden.
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