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US presidential elections are won and lost in a handful of states where both candidates have a realistic chance of victory.
That’s because of the Electoral College, which apportions votes for the presidency indirectly, state by state.
But forget about the biggest states by population such as California and New York, which reliably vote Democratic, or Texas, which backs the Republicans.
Even Florida - ground zero of the agonisingly close election in 2000 - is no longer a toss-up, now considered safe Republican territory.
Candidates focus their efforts instead on those states that polls show could flip either way.
In this election between the Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump, there are seven battleground states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
With 13 million residents and 19 votes in the Electoral College, Pennsylvania is the biggest prize. It already played the decisive role in 2020 when its voters handed victory to President Joe Biden (who grew up in the state) against Trump.
Along with Michigan and Wisconsin, Pennsylvania forms part of the “rust belt” where communities have been hammered by job losses as heavy industries such as steel and coal-mining have closed down.
If Vice President Harris can sweep all three states, she will hit exactly the 270 Electoral College votes needed to secure occupancy of the White House.
After Biden was forced to bow out of this year’s race, Harris has been virtually camped out in Pennsylvania, pressing her case to the state’s working-class voters around Philadelphia and Pittsburgh as well as richer, Republican-leaning suburbs.
She was spending all of Monday’s last day of campaigning in Pennsylvania for a series of rallies, set to be joined by stars including Oprah Winfrey, Lady Gaga, Katy Perry and Ricky Martin.
Mapped: ‘Consensus forecast’ for the 2024 presidential election based on ratings from several forecasters. Credit: 270towin.com
But Trump is preying on Democratic divisions in the rust-belt states, which include some of his most devoted “Maga” fans in communities devastated by the exodus of old industries.
Harris, who has refused to break with Biden’s backing for Israel over the war in Gaza, has a tough fight to win over Arab-American voters around Detroit in the old car-making capital of Michigan.
Wisconsin, historically a hotbed of progressive politics, also poses challenges because of Gaza, and it went for Trump in 2016.
Despite her biracial profile, Harris is also battling to shore up black votes in the southern states of Georgia and North Carolina. Both were traditionally Republican, but have become much more marginal in recent elections.
Georgia flipped to the Democrats in 2020, but only by 0.2% - triggering Trump’s notorious appeal to state officials to “find” him a few extra thousand votes, the subject of one of the court cases still hanging over him.
Meanwhile both candidates have been courting Hispanic voters in Arizona and Nevada in the West.
Despite his xenophobic rhetoric, Trump won Arizona in 2016, and polls show increasing numbers of voters are receptive to his message that newer migrants are taking jobs in both Hispanic and black communities (a claim that is disputed by most economists).
If he can hold onto North Carolina, grab back Georgia and Arizona, and win Michigan with its large Arab-American population, then he reaches 271 votes in the Electoral College.
There are various routes to victory for either candidate, but all run through the seven battleground states. Given how tight the race is, we could be in for a long wait before the result is clear.
