About 240 million Americans are eligible to vote in this presidential election. But probably a relatively small number of them will determine the answer to the question of who will be the next president.
Experts believe that there is only a handful of states where either Democrat Kamala Harris or Republican Donald Trump can win.
Among them, Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are the states that may hold the key to the White House.
Now, in the final months of the election, both parties are scrambling to win the hearts of undecided voters in those states.
Arizona
In 2020, Democrats won the presidential election with the support of this state, known as the ‘Grand Canyon State’. The state won the party’s candidate by a narrow margin for the first time since the 1990 elections.
The state shares hundreds of miles of border with Mexico and is at the center of the national debate over immigration.
Recent months have seen the biggest drop in border crossings and the issue is at the heart of voters.
Harris, who was given a role by President Joe Biden to help resolve the border issue, has been attacked by Trump over the issue.
The debate also heated up in Arizona after Republicans tried to reimpose a 160-year-old ban on abortion. But the ban was stopped.
This issue has taken an explosive form across the country since 2020 after the US Supreme Court made a historic decision and gave women the constitutional right to have an abortion.
Jorja
Our list of “swing states” is very similar to the places where Republican officials are trying to derail a Biden victory in the 2020 election.
One of the four lawsuits alleging Trump interfered in the election is being filed in Fulton County, Georgia. He has been convicted in one and the rest are pending.
Along with him, 18 others are accused of conspiring to reverse the narrow defeat to Biden. But Trump has denied the allegations and the case is unlikely to go to trial before the election.
One-third of Jorja’s population is of African-American descent, and it also has the nation’s largest proportion of black residents. This population is believed to have played a key role in swinging the 2020 election in the state in favor of Biden.
While there have been reports of black Americans disillusioned with Biden, Harris campaigners hope the situation in the region can be handled.
Michigan
In the last two elections, this ‘Great Lakes State’ has elected the winning candidate. Although it supported Biden in 2020, now this state has become synonymous with the discontent spread across the country about the support that Biden gave to Israel in the Gaza war.
More than 100,000 voters voted “not committed” in the February Democratic Party ‘primary’ contest in Michigan. They were campaigners who wanted the US to end aid to Israel.
Notably, the largest Arab-American population in the country resides in Michigan. This population’s support for Biden was in jeopardy. But some Gaza protesters have told the BBC they expect Harris to be more sympathetic to their cause because of Harris’s tough stance on Israel.
Trump has been saying that the state will play an important role in his journey to a possible victory. Commenting on the developments in the Middle East, he called on Israel to quickly end the operation against Hamas in Gaza.
NABHARA
This state has voted Democrat in the last few elections. But there are signs Republicans could reverse that.
According to a recent average synthesis report published by Five Three Eight, an organization that monitors polls, polls once showed Trump well ahead of Biden in the state, but that lead has shrunk with Harris’ candidacy.
Democrats hope the gap will narrow further with a candidate who can appeal to a younger and more diverse electorate.
Both candidates are trying to win over the sizable Latino population.
Although the US economy and job creation have seen massive growth since Biden took office, post-Covid recovery in this state has been extremely slow.
Nevada has the highest unemployment rate at 5.1 percent, behind California and the District of Columbia (DC), according to new government data.
Trump has pledged to return to an agenda of tax and deregulation cuts if re-elected.
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Polls have shown that the gap between the two candidates has narrowed since Harris became the Democratic nominee in the state. Some analysts have interpreted this as a situation where both candidates have an equal chance of winning.
The fact that Trump has decided to hold his first campaign event here since the shooting in July probably speaks to its importance.
“This state is very important for victory,” he said while addressing the crowd.
The Democrats decided to give the stage to the governor of this state, Roy Cooper, on the last night of the party ‘convention’.
Trump won the state by just over 70,000 votes in the 2020 election. Therefore, the hope of the Democrats to win this time has increased.
pennsylvania
In this state, both the parties are conducting their campaigns vigorously. This is the same state where Trump survived an assassination attempt.
By supporting Biden in 2020, this state has already proven itself to be decisive. Biden had a deep emotional connection to the working-class town of Scranton because he grew up there.
Like many other places, the economy has been the main issue here. Inflation rose across the country during the Biden administration before gradually declining.
People here are no different than Americans in other states who are struggling with the cost of living. But in Pennsylvania, the price of everyday grocery items has increased faster than in other states, according to data assembly, a market research organization.
The BBC had earlier reported that people in Pennsylvania’s key county of Eary are struggling for food, with one in eight people not having enough to eat.
High rates of inflation could hurt Harris across the country. Polls show it gives voters an unfavorable view of the economy.
Trump has attacked Biden, blaming Harris for the economy.
Wisconsin
In both the 2016 and 2020 elections, this state also selected the winning candidate. Both times the margin was just over 20 votes.
Third-party candidates campaigning against the policies of major-party candidates could make an impact in marginal states like Wisconsin, according to insiders.
Polls show that independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will receive good support from voters, which could hurt either Harris or Trump.
Democrats are fighting to push a Green Party candidate out of the race for violating state election laws, and have filed a complaint against another candidate with a left-leaning academic background, Colonel West.
Describing the importance of Wisconsin, Trump said, “Really important…if we win Wisconsin, we win everything.” His party’s summer ‘national convention’ was held in Milwaukee.
Harris was campaigning in the same city when the Democratic Party was formally nominating her as its presidential candidate through a ‘live-feed’. BBC
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