The 2024 US presidential election to be held in the USA today is being closely followed by the whole world. The elections on November 5 will determine both the new president who will govern the country for 4 years and the new members of the Senate and House of Representatives. The race between the Democratic Party candidate Kamala Harris and the former president and Republican Party candidate Donald Trump has been neck and neck for weeks.
The United States of America is a federal union consisting of 50 states. The seven critical states, called “swing” because they can change hands between parties with small votes, can determine the arithmetic of the US presidential election. In other words, the president of the US is decided by the states that are home to only 18 percent of the population of over 337 million.
Which are the swing States?
In the 2024 presidential election, everyone’s eyes are on the states of Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, Michigan, North Carolina and Wisconsin. In the US, where the candidate who reached 270 delegates won the presidency, swing states have a total of 93 delegates.
Pennsylvania is the swing state with the most delegates in terms of population. It is the scene of competition with 19 Electoral College delegates. In the 2020 election, Joe Biden was elected president by winning the state by a little over a point. Georgia, which has 16 delegates, is also a Republican-leaning state, but it elected Biden in the 2020 election. Nevada, on the other hand, has the fewest delegates among swing states with 6 seats.
It can change over the years
Swing states can change over the years. For example, Florida was considered a swing state from the 1990s to 2020 but has become a Republican stronghold as Republican voter registration has increased.
The states being watched closely this year are Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Nevada. North Carolina is a new addition to the group. Although it is traditionally a right-leaning state, Democratic presidential candidate Barak Obama’s victory in 2008 has made the two parties no longer a clear-cut contender. North Carolina, which has 16 delegates, is not a guaranteed winner for Republicans in the 2024 elections.
The issue that voters care about also change
In this year’s elections, swing states are responding differently to certain issues. While border states Nevada and Arizona are more sensitive to the issue of immigration, the Biden administration’s Gaza policy of the last year stands out in Michigan. In states like Pennsylvania, urban Republican women voters are seen to be closer to the Democratic party’s views on abortion.
In Georgia, where Trump’s recent elections saw allegations of ballot box fraud, election security is at the forefront. In North Carolina, there has been a sharp increase in the Asian and Latino populations in recent years. Anti-discrimination policies are gaining more importance in a state where 1 in 5 voters are of African descent.
