WASHINGTON: The race between US Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump on Nov. 5 is poised to be one of the closest elections in modern American history.
With just a week to go until election day, there is little distance between the candidates in the handful of crucial states that frame the 2024 race.
Each of the 50 states in the United States would hold its own presidential election, as stated in the constitution. Each state has a set number of “electors” based on population under the intricate electoral college system. In most states, the winner takes all system gives all electors to the person who gets the most votes.
Elections are typically decided in the hotly contested “swing states,” which have a history of alternating Republican and Democratic candidates, with candidates needing 270 of the 538 electoral votes to win.
There are seven of these battlegrounds this year, and every one is a tossup within the range of possibility.
Pennsylvania was once a reliably Democratic state with 19 electoral college votes; however, the Keystone State is now much closer than Pennsylvania.
With 13 million people living there, Republican Trump won the most populous battleground in 2016 by 0.7 percentage points. In 2020, Joe Biden won it by 1.2 percentage points.
AFP Known for its “Rust Belt” cities like Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania has been blighted for decades by the steady decline of its industrial manufacturing base. Supporters of former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump gather to show their support near his residence.
In the state where they held their one and only presidential debate, Trump and Harris have repeatedly campaigned. Trump, who was attempting to assassinate himself at a rally in Pennsylvania in July, is wooing rural white people and is warning that migrants are taking over small towns.
In Pittsburgh, Harris discussed plans to invest $100 billion in manufacturing, which is an important issue for residents of the state, and she is praising recent victories in infrastructure.
Georgia, with 16 electoral college votes, was an election flashpoint at the end of Trump’s first term. After calling state officials and urging them to “find” enough votes to overturn Biden’s narrow victory in 2020, Trump was indicted in an election interference case.
However, the case is put on hold until after the election in Trump’s favor.
Since 1992, Biden was the first Democrat to win the Peach State.
The southeastern state of North Carolina has only voted Democratic once since 1980, with 16 votes, but Harris believes it is back in play.
Democrats gain from the fact that the population, which now exceeds 10 million, is growing and becoming more diverse.
One wild card, like in Georgia’s neighbor, is how the devastation caused by Hurricane Helene, which recently destroyed towns in western North Carolina, might affect the vote.
Michigan On his way to defeating Hillary Clinton in 2016, Trump won Michigan, a former Democratic stronghold, by 15 electoral college votes.
Kamala Harris, the US vice president running for the Democratic presidential nomination, speaks at a campaign rally on October 28, 2024 in Ann Arbor, Michigan. AFP Biden returned to the blue column in 2020, buoyed by a large Black community and unionized workers. This time, however, Harris runs the risk of losing the support of the 200,000 Arab Americans who have criticized Biden’s handling of the Gaza crisis.
With 11 electoral votes, Arizona’s Grand Canyon state was one of the closest races in 2020, with Biden winning by 10,457 votes.
Arizona, which shares a border with Mexico, is a state that Trump hopes will turn back in his favor as a result of dissatisfaction with the immigration policy of the Biden administration. In September, Harris made a promise to work toward reviving the bipartisan border bill that was passed last year and to clamp down on migration.
Wisconsin After giving the state a wide margin during the 2016 campaign, Clinton lost Wisconsin, which has ten votes in the electoral college. Since his party held its summer national convention there, Trump believes it can be won. Despite Trump’s early advantage over Biden, Harris has made the state race a close race.
Nevada, a Silver State with 3.1 million people and six votes, hasn’t voted Republican since 2004, but conservatives are convinced they can change the course thanks to Trump’s progress with Hispanic voters.
Against Biden, Trump held a significant advantage here. However, Harris erased that advantage in the western state, whose largest city is Las Vegas, which is dominated by the hospitality industry, within weeks of becoming the Democratic nominee while simultaneously promoting her economic plans to assist small businesses and combat inflation.
