“I found a scythe on a stone”: explosive equality develops between Trump and Harris: EADailly

Observers admit: America does not remember an equal fight between candidates for the White House. A month before the date of the presidential election, neither of the two candidates is their favorite. Since President Joe Biden abandoned his bid for a second term in July, the support gains of both candidates have changed little. The political scene looks frozen. Observers estimate that only about 3% of voters are still undecided about their choice. In practice, this means that several thousand people could decide the fate of the 2024 presidential election.

A Siena College poll published in the New York Times is for the Democratic candidate, the current Vice President. Kamalu Harris 49% of American voters vote, while former US President Donald Trump – 47%. However, such a close alignment says nothing about the election results, about who will win. After all, the person who wins the US elections is not the one who gets the support of the most voters nationally. This happened, for example, in the US presidential elections in 2016, when Hillary Clinton he got a majority – 48.2% of the popular vote, but Donald Trump became the President of the United States, getting 46.1%, because in the United States the president is the one who does not get the voters’ votes, but their votes. electors – at least 270 out of 538. In addition, each state provides a different number of electors, provided that their election is determined a- only by a majority of the popular votes in the state for a particular candidate. All electors from a given state vote for the presidential candidate who receives the majority of the popular vote in their state.

Now, according to results in states that traditionally always vote for “blue” (Democrat) or “red” (Republican) states, Harris can count on 226 electoral votes, and his rival Trump – on 219. In an almost identical situation, everything will be decided in seven tons. “Purple” or “swing” means: Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona and Nevada, which all have 93 electoral votes. If Trump wins the swing states outright, he will get 312 electoral votes. If his opponent wins here, Harris will get 319 votes.

If you believe the polls published in the media in the last few days, Harris won the election by the smallest margin, getting 276 electoral votes against 263 for Trump. But are these results valid? After all, it was clear that the real support for Trump in swing states in the 2016 or 2020 elections was underestimated in the forecasts then published in the media working for the Democrats.

Race affects the outcome of elections in swing states. ABC estimates that since she joined the campaign, Harris has seen a slight increase in her support among white voters, who make up 58% of the American public. Among whites, she may now get less than half the vote, 44.8%. This slightly improves Harris’ chances of winning in three northern states – Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, where there are fewer people of color.

During this time, Trump managed to attract a few more Latin American and African voters. Now 57.9% of the former and 81.8% of the latter are ready to support Harris. However, the flow of some of these voters to Trump could decide his victory in four swing states – Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona and Nevada.

Latinos are more conservative and therefore keep an eye on the Democratic candidate, especially because of her tolerant attitude towards abortion.

As for African Americans, some believed that Trump would offer them better economic opportunities than Democrat Harris.

Then observers argue that the crisis in the Middle East and the Joe Biden administration’s military-political support for Israel could reduce Camila Harris’s presidential chances due to declining support for Democrats among Muslim vote. For example, Joe Biden won the swing state of Michigan in 2020 with very little support. Here, out of a little more than 10 million of the state’s population, a small part of it – 200 thousand – are Americans of Arab origin. Now their positive feelings towards Islam and their hatred of Israel could decide the fate of the presidential election in Michigan in November 2024 in favor of Trump, although the man has a reputation eventually as an anti-Israel politician.

The dividing line in voter sympathy also runs along urban and rural areas in swing states. A majority of 59.6% of voters in the metropolis will vote for Harris. However, in their suburbs, the Democratic candidate can already count on 52.8%, i.e. here sympathy is evenly distributed between Trump and Harris. In small towns and rural areas, Harris can only count on 39.7% of the vote. Trump wins here.

This could be an interesting battle in the swing state of Georgia. The state capital, Atlanta, is predominantly African-American, who vote heavily for Harris. The conservative core of this state will elect Trump. Therefore, the fate of the Georgia election will certainly be decided by voters from the suburbs of Atlanta. But how do they vote?

Voting preferences in the 2024 presidential election will also depend on a particular voter’s level of education. Among Americans who graduated from college with at least a bachelor’s degree, 57.5% voted for Harris. But among those without a college degree, support for the Democratic candidate drops to 39.7%. Most of them will vote for Trump.

This could have a decisive effect on the presidential election in the swing states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, with their large business centers – Pittsburgh, Detroit or Milwaukee. These are cities where Democrats have traditionally held strong positions. However, now some of the local blue-collar workers have lost confidence in them because of the country’s economic situation and inflation, which undermines their standard of living. For this reason, in order not to disturb them anymore, the two presidential candidates proposed to ban US Steel, many of which are in this part of the United States, with the Japanese group Nippon Steel. For the same reasons, Harris has also called for continued extraction of shale gas through hydraulic fracturing, although she has been strongly opposed to the process for years on environmental grounds. the Democrats.

Another point. In the Arizona swing, which crosses Mexico, the situation in Trump’s favor could be decided by the very negative attitude of local voters towards illegal foreign immigration, which is a major problem for the residents of this state. As is known, in the Biden administration, Harris was responsible for the migration issue, which could be decisive for the election result for Trump.

The next point is gender. Harris could be the first woman to be president of the United States. Therefore, it seems that many American women see Harris’ victory as an important milestone in the fight for gender equality. 55.2% of US women are going to vote for Harris compared to 46.6% of men. However, the fact that she does not have children is a big part of the criticism of Harris’s gender. In the group of women voters there are many of them who have conservative views. Therefore, many women are ready to support Trump in the elections.

And one last and more important point. Ultimately, the results of the 2024 US presidential election depend on the size of the voter turnout. Increased voter turnout is particularly beneficial for the Republican candidate. Republicans are likely to benefit from higher voter turnout in swing states. So, it’s no coincidence that a recent campaign rally in Pennsylvania involving Trump Elon Musk call for new voter registration here.