States that decide America’s next president | World News

This makes seven truly competitive states extremely important. Results elsewhere are virtually guaranteed. Consider what happened in 2020, when the 311,000 votes cast for Joe Biden in six battleground states gave him a victory. He won Georgia by 0.2%, Arizona by 0.3%, Wisconsin by 0.6%, Pennsylvania by 1.2%, Nevada by 2.4% and Michigan by 2.8%. He lost to North Carolina State by a 1.3% margin. All of these states are up for grabs this year, and once again margins are looking very tight.

Harris has the best chance of winning the 270 electoral votes needed to become president in the Midwestern “blue wall” states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, which have a combined 44 votes. The Blue Wall has tilted in favor of Democratic candidates in five of the past six elections. If Harris wins all three, plus Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District (which includes Omaha, a Democratic city in an otherwise deep red state), even if she loses other battleground states, she still He could win the White House. With 19 electoral college votes, Pennsylvania has the most wins of any battleground state, and thus is the most likely “tipping point” in our simulations. Pollsters are calling it a “nearly must-win” state for either candidate. Recent polls show Harris and Trump tied. Voters in Pennsylvania and other Rust Belt states are older, whiter, more rural, and slightly less educated than the overall electorate. Harris could give up Michigan (15 votes), for example, and still win if she performs well in the Sunbelt, where she is younger and more racially diverse. In theory, these demographics should be a blessing for Democrats. But historically, he has been less successful in the Republican-leaning South of Arizona, Georgia, and North Carolina (although Arizona and Georgia narrowly went for Biden in 2020). Nevada is the only state that has consistently voted Democratic since 2008.

Ms. Harris may be hoping that a weak and eccentric Republican vote against her will reduce turnout for Mr. Trump. Kari Lake, the Republican candidate for the Arizona Senate and a vehement denier of the election, is trailing Democratic opponent Ruben Gallego by a wide margin in polls. In North Carolina, Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson has been embroiled in a scandal and is virtually certain to lose the race. Meanwhile, a ballot measure enshrining the right to abortion in Arizona’s constitution could boost Democratic turnout in the state.

That Ms. Harris remains competitive in the Sun Belt is a sign of how much the race has changed since Mr. Biden left office in July. Trump is still favored to win in Arizona, Georgia, and North Carolina, but our predictive models show that Democrats have a roughly 20-40 chance of winning these states since Biden left office. is rising. In four other states, Harris increased Democrats’ chances of victory by more than 25 points. With the race so close, even the slightest change could decide the fate of the election.