US Presidential Election, Nov 5th 2024

Question . If it is the six or seven swing states that decide the election why do the other states need to vote ?
Because otherwise their lack of voting would decide the election. ;-)

But, in all seriousness, every state must provide an election, it is just a quirk of the composition of the electorate (and heavy gerrymandering, mostly by Republicans) that has lead to the small number of battleground states being the decider. That is because the other states (with the possible exception of Iowa, it seems) are set to very likely fall for either Harris or Trump based on careful analysis of many different factors.

Now, that is not to say that there could not be a surprise or two (looking again at Iowa), but the vast majority of states are effectively “locked” for one candidate or another based on the make up of the voters and the voting districts in those states.

The battleground states are where that is not the case—they could conceivably go either way. So they are the ones most closely watched and scrutinised by political junkies, pollsters, analysts, and operatives, and courted by candidates and campaigns.

And this is why, to paraphrase a recent comment by the French minister, we are in a position where a small number of voters in Wisconsin can have a large role in setting the security policy of Europe.
 
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Thank you

These do shift over time (recently Florida was the king of swing states and is now a fairly safe Republican banker) but by and large the pollsters know which are safe and which are in play.

It’s all about the rust belt these days. They almost always vote together too which is why all the talk is about Pennsylvania.
 
If Harris loses the race, one does wonder what it means for the likelihood of a woman becoming president via election. The Democratic Party will then have run two candidates from a party position of incumbency and lost both times, while the Republican Party appears to have adopted an ever more masculine image. Should Harris lose, even if winning the popular vote like Hilary Clinton, then the system is such that it's terribly difficult to see either party putting a woman at the top of the ticket in 2028.
Perhaps the first woman president will be a Republican?
 

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