Editor-DN
Washington:
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are pushing toward their election showdown in November, one of the closest contests in modern American history.
And in a handful of key states shaping the 2024 race, there is little light between the contenders, barely a month before Election Day on Nov. 5.
Under the U.S. Constitution, the founders of the United States established that each of the 50 states would cast its own vote for president.
Then, under the complex electoral college system, each state has a certain number of “electors” based on population. Most states have a winner-take-all system that rewards all voters who win the popular vote.
Candidates need 270 out of 538 electors to win, with elections decided in hotly contested “swing states” that have a history of alternating between Republican and Democratic candidates.
This year, there are seven such battlegrounds, and virtually everyone is a toss up. Here’s a look:
Pennsylvania (19 Electoral College votes)
Pennsylvania was once reliably Democratic, but these days, they don’t come much harder than the Keystone State.
Trump, a Republican, won the most populous battleground state in 2016 by 0.7 percentage points, with 13 million residents. Joe Biden claimed 1.2 percentage points in 2020.
Known for its “Rust Belt” cities like Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania has been plagued by the steady decline of its industrial manufacturing base for decades.
Trump and Harris have repeatedly campaigned in the eastern state. Trump, who survived an assassination attempt at a rally there in July, has been welcoming the rural white population and warning that immigrants are overwhelming small towns.
Harris is touting recent infrastructure wins, and in Pittsburgh, she outlined plans to invest $100 billion in manufacturing, a key issue for the state’s residents.
Georgia (16)
The southeastern state was an electoral flashpoint at the end of Trump’s first term, and the controversy continued to emerge.
Prosecutors in Georgia charged Trump with election interference after he called on state officials to “find” enough votes to overturn Biden’s narrow 2020 victory.
But in Trump’s promotion, the case is on hold until after the election.
Biden was the first Democrat to win the Peach State since 1992. The demographic changes are likely to benefit Harris, who has drawn support from minority voters in Georgia.
North Carolina (16)
The southeastern state has voted Democratic just once since 1980, but Harris believes it’s in play again.
The population, now more than 10 million, is expanding and becoming more diverse, giving Democrats an advantage.
Complicating matters for Trump, a scandal involving the state’s Republican gubernatorial candidate has angered party officials who fear it could sink Trump into a close race.
As in neighboring Georgia, a wild card is that the devastation of Hurricane Helene, which recently devastated towns in western North Carolina, could affect the vote.
Michigan (15)
Trump flipped former Democratic stronghold Michigan to defeat Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Biden returned it to the blue column in 2020, buoyed by unionized workers and a large black community.
But this time, Harris risks losing the support of the 200,000-strong Arab-American community that has condemned Biden’s — and by extension — handling of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
Arizona (11)
The Grand Canyon state was among the tightest races of 2020, with Biden winning by just 10,457 votes.
Trump hopes frustration over the immigration policy of the Biden-Harris administration will swing Arizona, which shares a border with Mexico, back into his favor.
Harris visited the Arizona border last week and vowed to crack down on immigration and work to restore last year’s bipartisan border bill, which he said Trump “tanked” for political purposes.
In the battleground state, Arizona is showing the biggest poll gain: Trump up by two percentage points.
Wisconsin (10)
Clinton lost Wisconsin after carrying the state by a wide margin during the 2016 campaign.
As with Midwestern neighbor Michigan, it was a different story when Trump’s opponent was Biden, who turned a 23,000-vote deficit into a winning margin of 21,000 for the Democrats.
Trump sees it as winnable, and his party held its summer national convention there.
While Trump has an early lead against Biden, Harris has a small polling lead.
(Other than the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
