Every one of us we hear about the swing states or the battleground states and how they decide the president. So which ones are they this time around and why do they matter?
Now of the 50 states 41 of them are essentially safe seats for either the Democrats or the Republicans. The Democrats in blue can pretty much bank 18 states as well as the District of Colombia before the countings even begun that is 222 Electoral College votes and these are states like New York or California.
Likewise the Republicans in red here can bank 23 states and that’s 214 electoral college votes and these are states like Texas and Oklahoma to add a bit of confusion Maine and Nebraska can be split like they were in 20120. Maine was mostly blue with one red seat a red dot and Nebraska the opposite but neither party gets to the magic number of 270 seats which is where the swing States come in and why they’re so vital.
There are seven of them.
The biggest is Pennsylvania with 19 votes available followed by North Carolina with 16 , Georgia also has 16, Michigan has 15, Arizona 11, Wisconsin 10 and Nevada has six. In 2020 less than 3% separated the winner from the loser in these seven states which means they’re the most likely to swing or to change this time around.
Trump and Harris essentially need to win three or four of these swing States in order to get to 270 but that’s provided they hold on to their safe seats. They’re assumed to win and that’s not guaranteed. The latest SAR poll suggests Iowa might swing too. It’s been red since 2016.
Now other states have swung in the past they’ve been Florida Missouri and Ohio. So they change every election cycle.
You’ll also hear terms like rust belt or sun belt to talk about some of these swing state groupings. The rust belt or steel belt is a group of industrial or former industrial powerhouses running from New York to the Midwest and they include the swing states of Pennsylvania Michigan and Wisconsin.
The sun belt or the smile refers to the states with hot humid or tropical climates and the swing states here are Arizona North Carolina Georgia and Nevada.
The swing states-they’re not all homogeneous, they are all completely different with different priorities and different population demographics. Arizona for example is a border state, so illegal immigration is a big issue for voters here Pennsylvania. It’s huge in size there is a rural urban divide there are class divisions as well.
Trump flipped it in 2016 just like he did with North Carolina in 20120. Georgia has the biggest number of black Americans out of the Swing states which might see it stay Democratic after decades of being Republic.
And then there’s Nevada its economy isn’t doing well postco which will play a role as might the US siding with Israel having an impact in Michigan, which has the highest number of Arab Americans in the US.
So there are lot of things at play here including surprises they are bound to be some of them too.
