State on the razor’s edge: The outcome for the entire country is decided in a few polling stations (Detroit, Michigan, October 28, 2024)
In the United States, elections are won in the middle. This is true geographically, and it is true politically. It is precisely the literal tornness of the country into an irredeemably red and an incorrigibly blue America – which is more than political, but rather an expression of two cultures that barely touch each other – which makes the wavering mass of voters so important in the election campaign. Those undecided people who need to be won over are found primarily in middle-class milieus, where politics revolves less around fundamental ideological issues. Certainly there, too, at the kitchen table, in front of the bar or after the service, every now and then it’s about money for Ukraine, the right to abortion, a lifestyle that is faithful to the Bible, civil rights, tradition and diversity, the madness in the Middle East, the status of the Supreme Court, the Reformation voting rights, climate change, national security, firearms.
However, questions of daily survival are crucial for the choice. According to a Yougov survey from October 2024, 46 percent of registered voters cited economic issues as the main criterion for their voting behavior: inflation, prices, jobs, growth, health care, taxes, government spending. Migration came to 15 percent, but this complex is closely linked to economic problems. Only one percent of voters noted that foreign policy was the most important criterion for them when casting their vote.
The political center is also a geographical one. It can be said that the coasts are ideologically stable and so is the rural hinterland. The Democrats own the northern East Coast and the entire West Coast. There are also a few deep blue states inland, such as Colorado, New Mexico, Minnesota and Illinois. Liberal America lives and represents itself in them, urban, enlightened, tolerant, educated, economically better off. Republicans own the interior west, the central south and the southern east coast. An alliance of Confederate tradition and hillbilly culture. You are provincial, less educated, economically and culturally out of the loop.
Contested States
Inside the country are the swing states, also known as “battle ground states,” because the presidential elections are decided there. Which states are included here has only changed slightly over the past few decades. Florida and Ohio, for example, were still part of the Obama administration, but are now firmly in Republican hands. Virginia and Colorado were swing states, but are now considered safe states for the Democrats. Conversely, the blue state of Nevada and the red states of Georgia, North Carolina and Arizona have become contested territory. However, the fuzzy set encloses a solid core. Current swing states usually have a history as a swing state.
In the 2024 election, seven states must be declared contested: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Wisconsin. A few days before the election, the poll numbers were so close that, with the best will in the world, it is impossible to make any assumptions about the outcome in these states or, given their crucial importance, not for the election as a whole. Translated into election night jargon: too close to call. While Harris led by two or three percentage points in four of the seven states a month ago, her lead there has now melted to less than one percent or even turned into a deficit. According to demoscopic experience, distances of less than three percent are within the error tolerance. So if we knew nothing a month ago, today we know less than nothing, so to speak. According to the average value of the surveys from all institutes and media between October 25th and November 2nd, Harris has 47.9 percent nationwide as of November 3rd, while Trump is at 46.9. The most recent surveys from November 2nd even showed a tie or a lead for Trump of up to two percentage points. The momentum of the red candidate is reflected even more clearly in the crucial states. In Arizona, Trump holds a lead of 2.1 percentage points, in North Carolina by 1.6, in Georgia 1.5, in Nevada 0.4. In the Rust Belt states, Harris seems to be just about able to maintain slight advantages; she leads in Michigan by one percentage point and in Wisconsin by 0.6 percentage points. In the largest swing state, Pennsylvania, it recently fell behind by 0.1.
This results in a pretty fragile numbers game for the Electoral College. If you add up the safe states, Harris has 226 electoral votes, Trump has 219. Of the total number of 538, a majority of 270 is required. The 93 still open are distributed across the seven swing states. If Trump wins the four southern ones, he would get 268 votes. If Harris wins the three Rust Belt states in the north, she would have the necessary 270. However, that means that she needs these three, because Trump, who leads more clearly in the southern states than Harris in the northern ones, only needs one of these to win the election.
The Rust Belt states are witnessing a cultural change in the country that appears to be thwarting the general population’s general tendency toward the Democratic Party and its culture. While the once safe red states of Georgia and North Carolina, like Virginia before them, are breaking away from the traditionally white South thanks to black voters, an increasing distance from the Democratic Party is becoming noticeable in the Rust Belt, this large region characterized by industry and the proletariat. Illinois and New York are solid blue; Ohio and Indiana now reliably vote red. Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, as noted, remain contested territory. In any case, it is undisputed that considerable parts of the working class in this region no longer feel represented by the Democrats.
Harris-We and Trump-We
Why these groups, despite all their frustration, turn to the Republicans, of all people, who are even less likely to have a policy for poorer people, can perhaps be explained if one pays attention to the ideologies that dominate in the United States. Roughly simplified, Republicans see it as radical personal responsibility; Society and the state should regulate as little as possible. If you don’t manage it, you’ll go under. The Democrats, on the other hand, rely on balancing unequal conditions; The principle of subsidiarity, which is also relevant for them, should be weakened somewhat by elements of solidarity. Basically, both parties, like the entire USA, are on libertarian ground. But by representing this principle less radically, the Democrats declare themselves responsible for the fate of the individual. Harris’ slogan of an “economy of opportunity” expresses this position; it is about promoting self-help, but for people with worse starting conditions. Although Republican and Democratic governments have often been unable to keep their economic policy promises in the past, the narrative that the Republicans are the party with the economic expertise persists. Where an entire society is determined by the ideology of personal responsibility, the party that nevertheless declares itself to be at least partially responsible is at a disadvantage. Republicans don’t promise people they’ll make them better off. They promise a free path for those who can take advantage of their opportunities. In this intellectual environment, the individual social loser will be more likely to blame himself than with those who always tell him that he and only he are the architect of his happiness.
In addition, the Republicans know how to convert frustration over social difficulties into hatred against marginal groups or cultural phenomena: wherever possible or not possible, economic misery is linked to migration; The narrative of a woke upper class that allows immigrants into the country and threatens traditional US values replaces the social question. The Republican Party is the umbrella under which billionaires and the precariat are supposed to fight side by side against immigrants and educated elites.
So in the USA you have the choice between two narratives: the Trump-we and the Harris-we, both of which react to the fact that there is an actual we in a society torn by capitalist accumulation, global crises and social misery with a poorly developed welfare state at best can’t give. The Harris “we” paper over this division, the Trump “we” transfers it to the broad field of culture wars.
