These are record elections. Record seniority of the candidates for the White House, the 81-year-old Joe Biden and the 78-year-old Donald Trump. Record spending, over ten billion. However, they could go down in history also and above all as the six by six ballot boxes. Decided in November by a tiny number of states and swing voters.
The vote is months away, but the political campaign in the United States seems destined for a photo finish, spurring strategists to dissect the propensities of public opinion like never before. Polls show a substantial neck and neck, around 45%, in a climate made more volatile by general disapproval of the 2020 rematch.
The impasse certainly betrays the gravity of the unknowns. Four criminal trials, doubts about his vocation to democracy, extreme rhetoric and controversial social and cultural crusades (against abortion) hover over Trump. Biden is concerned about age, an economy troubled by inflation and domestic and foreign emergencies from immigration to conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, with the Israeli-Palestinian drama sparking protests among young people.
But the future of the White House, thanks to the growing polarization of the country and its electoral system, despite the vastness of the challenges today appears to be in the hands of increasingly narrow bands of regions and voters. The formula, in fact, of six by six: sees as the absolute protagonist half a dozen states in the Midwest and South-West, where a slice of 6% of “persuadable” voters is also up for grabs.
The Magnificent Six battleground? Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, once the heart of the Blue Wall, the industrial-electoral wall of Biden’s Democratic Party cracked by Trumpian populism. Then Georgia, Nevada and Arizona, once conservative fiefdoms and now more diverse. In 2020 Biden won them all by a very narrow margin. In 2016 it was Trump who made inroads in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and snatched the presidency.
#undecided #states #decide #future
2024-05-12 01:50:49