{"id":14321,"date":"2024-09-23T17:06:46","date_gmt":"2024-09-23T17:06:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/?p=14321"},"modified":"2024-09-24T16:21:46","modified_gmt":"2024-09-24T16:21:46","slug":"the-deciders-the-issues-and-states-that-will-determine-who-wins-the-white-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/?p=14321","title":{"rendered":"The Deciders: The issues and states that will determine who wins the White House"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In a wild election season, these 7 states \u2014 with disparate identities and spanning the nation \u2014 will decide our next president<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By<\/strong> Kevin Hardy\/Stateline<\/strong><\/em><\/h4>\n\n\n
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Editor\u2019s note: This five-day series explores voter priorities in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin as they consider the upcoming presidential election and the nation\u2019s future. With the outcome expected to be close, the \u201cswing states\u201d as they are called are often a bellwether for the country.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s been a wild few months in the presidential race: President Joe Biden dropped out and Vice President Kamala Harris captured the Democratic nomination. Former President Donald Trump survived an assassination attempt in Pennsylvania and was targeted again at his golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the historic lead-up to Election Day, the race has now settled into familiar territory: Much like 2020\u2019s contest, top political strategists on both sides of the aisle expect control of the White House could come down to just a few thousand votes in a handful of battleground states.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cThis is not going to be an election where you will see a landslide. It\u2019s going to be won in the margins in six to seven swing states,\u201d Democratic strategist Donna Brazile told a crowd of state lawmakers from across the country last month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brazile, who ran Al Gore\u2019s 2000 presidential campaign, shared the stage with Republican strategist Kellyanne Conway, who managed Trump\u2019s 2016 campaign and advised him in the White House.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unsurprisingly, the pair disagreed on much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But while speaking at the National Conference of State Legislatures in Kentucky, the two senior strategists framed the race similarly to the 2020 contest, when fewer than 50,000 votes<\/a> in Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin separated Biden and Trump from an Electoral College tie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is a different race. It has turned in very short time, but the issue set hasn\u2019t changed at all,\u201d Conway said. \u201cAnd I think that\u2019s what\u2019s important here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like last cycle, the two campaigns are pouring millions into Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In \u201cThe Deciders\u201d series, States Newsroom, the nation\u2019s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization, explores the political issues and groups of voters that could make the difference in those seven states and, consequentially, in the race for the White House.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unsurprisingly, economic issues \u2014<\/sub> namely, stubbornly high prices \u2014 are proving central for many voters across the swing states. But voters also are concerned about immigration, abortion access and the future of the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In states such as Michigan and Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, labor unions could prove instrumental for Harris after years of significant gains by organized labor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Georgia and North Carolina, Black voter turnout could make the difference, while Latino voters are closely divided in Nevada after helping propel Biden to victory there four years ago. In every swing state, campaigns are focused on all-important suburban voters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The election\u2019s outcome also could be shaped by the work of officials who have been debating who can vote and which votes should count since the mayhem of the last presidential contest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Four years ago, a false narrative that questioned the security and integrity of elections took hold in some legislatures. New laws changed ballot-counting practices and made it more difficult to vote in many states, including swing states. In states such as Michigan and Wisconsin, there is broad concern that despite the checks and balances built into the voting system, local Republicans tasked with certifying elections will be driven by conspiracy theories and refuse to fulfill their duties if Trump loses again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fears that these efforts could sow chaos and delay results is not unfounded: Over the past four years, county officials in the swing states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania have refused to certify certain local elections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With such a close race, voter turnout and motivation will be key in all the battleground states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As in other swing states, North Carolina\u2019s 16 Electoral College votes could hinge on how political independents vote, said Carter Wrenn, a longtime Republican strategist who has worked on many campaigns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And those independents can be unpredictable in North Carolina: Their votes helped both Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper and Trump carry the state in the last two general elections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the independents that are up for grabs, and they don\u2019t mind splitting a ticket at all,\u201d Wrenn said. \u201cUltimately, in the general election, that\u2019s the key group.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The economy<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

In every state this year, the economy is a central issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Trump tries to fault Harris and Biden for the high costs of everyday living, polling shows voters blame Harris less for the situation than they did Biden \u2014 though likely voters profess more confidence in Trump\u2019s ability to manage the economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For her part, Harris has unveiled plans to lower prices of rent, homebuying and groceries, <\/a>arguing she will remain focused on the middle class from Day One, contrasting her ideas with what she characterizes as Trump\u2019s catering to billionaires.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Georgia, Republicans and Democrats alike have found success in recent statewide campaigns by highlighting similar kitchen table issues. After attending a Harris rally in Savannah last month, Georgia voter Sarah Damato said she doesn\u2019t believe Trump will fight for the middle class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This is not going to be an election where you will see a landslide. It\u2019s going to be won in the margins in six to seven swing states. \u2013 Democratic strategist Donna Brazile<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

At the event, the vice president told listeners she would lower costs by fighting corporate price-fixing and touted her proposal for a \u201ccare economy,\u201d a set of progressive proposals including benefits for parents of newborns and credits for first-time homebuyers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cKamala Harris made it very evident today that the American family is the most important thing on her mind these days, and she\u2019s going to make it easier for each one of us to have a brighter future,\u201d Damato said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Kenosha, Wisconsin, meanwhile, Republican Party volunteer Sharon Buege said she supports the GOP ticket because she sees the race as a matter of \u201cgood versus evil.\u201d Speaking outside a news conference by Trump running mate J.D. Vance, Buege said she opposed \u201cthe whole left agenda,\u201d adding that her top issues in the race were border security, the economy, human trafficking, homelessness and \u201cindoctrination\u201d in public schools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At that same news conference, a man who would only give his name as \u201cJohn\u201d said the economy and inflation mattered most: \u201cI don\u2019t need a reminder of why to support Trump. I can get that every time I go to the gas station or grocery store.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Groups of voters<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

With Republicans looking to run up margins in rural parts of the battleground states and Democrats banking on big leads in cities, the suburbs remain pivotal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Georgia, diverse and growing suburbs have helped move the state from reliably red to purple.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the state\u2019s two largest suburban counties of Cobb and Gwinnett, Biden picked up more than 137,000 votes in 2020 over 2016 Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, according to data from the Georgia Secretary of State\u2019s office. The same year, Trump boosted his total by just under 32,000 votes over his 2016 performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Trump campaign boasts a mighty in-state operation: nearly 15,000 volunteers signing up between mid-July and the end of August, nearly 300 events scheduled for September, and 4,000 neighborhood organizers and canvassers \u2014 known as Trump Force Captains \u2014 joining the cause in July and August.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Team Harris says they are running the largest Georgia operation of any Democratic presidential campaign cycle, with more than 200 campaign staff in 28 offices. Harris\u2019 recent visit to the more conservative south side of the state marked her 16th trip to Georgia since becoming vice president and her seventh trip this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harris is hoping to fire up the young, diverse Democratic base, but her team also is hoping she can hang onto or expand on Biden\u2019s coalition of older, affluent, educated and largely white suburbanites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThose are the people who are actually kind of pivotal and who will modify or change their behavior,\u201d said University of Georgia political science professor Charles Bullock.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThese people are largely Republicans, but they can\u2019t bring themselves to vote for Donald Trump or for Republicans who are closely associated with him,\u201d Bullock said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It is a different race. It has turned in very short time, but the issue set hasn\u2019t changed at all. \u2013 Republican strategist Kellyanne Conway<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Larry Ceisler, a Philadelphia public affairs executive and political analyst, said the four suburban Philadelphia counties surrounding Pennsylvania\u2019s largest city are key to winning that state. Once a Republican bastion, the so-called collar counties of Bucks, Chester, Delaware and Montgomery have swung strongly in the other direction since 2016.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That complicates messaging for both campaigns, Ceisler said. Trump\u2019s anti-abortion stance and Harris\u2019 effort to back away from her earlier statements against fracking \u2014 both positions that appeal to rural and western Pennsylvania voters \u2014 are potential liabilities in suburbs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Democrats have a 343,000-voter registration advantage over Republicans in Pennsylvania. But the state has been decided by narrow margins in the last two presidential elections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Daniel Mallinson, an associate professor of public policy and administration at Penn State Harrisburg, noted that the Trump campaign has paid attention to Black and Latino voters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne of the weaknesses that Biden had as a candidate was he had weakening support among African American voters. And then Trump has actually done fairly well, particularly in some other states, like in Florida, with Latino voters,\u201d Mallinson said, adding that Harris\u2019 nomination changes the equation somewhat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After Democrats seemingly all but wrote off Arizona for Biden, the contest there is proving more winnable for Harris. Biden narrowly won Arizona in 2020, but he had been hemorrhaging Latino support this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the manufacturing-heavy upper Midwest, labor unions could prove consequential in not only persuading voters but also motivating them to the polls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Biden was the first sitting president to visit a picket line when the United Auto Workers last year took on the \u201cBig Three\u201d Detroit automakers \u2014 Ford, General Motors and Stellantis \u2014 by going on strike. That effort led to significant increases in pay and benefits for workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The UAW, which in August announced a national campaign<\/a> to motivate its 1 million active and retired members to vote for Harris, says its membership accounted for 9.2% of Biden\u2019s 2020 votes in Michigan alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTo me, this election is real simple,\u201d UAW president Shawn Fain told a crowd<\/a> of about 15,000 people last month at a rally in Detroit for Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. \u201cIt\u2019s about one question. It\u2019s a question we made famous in the labor movement: Which side are you on?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Political weaknesses <\/h4>\n\n\n\n

While Democrats are more motivated than when Biden was the presumptive nominee, they still face internal conflicts, the most high-profile of which has been about the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dee Sull, a Las Vegas attorney who works in immigration and family law, is a registered Democrat who said she would never vote for Trump. Yet she doesn\u2019t really want to vote for Harris, leaving her \u201cvery torn\u201d this election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI believe our foreign policy in Gaza is completely ridiculous. I\u2019m very disturbed,\u201d she said of U.S. military aid to Israel. \u201cIf we\u2019re going to spend money, I want it spent on my kids here \u2014 on my neighbors\u2019 kids here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sull said both parties have silenced the voices of those who protest the death and destruction in Gaza. And she was irritated that Palestinian American activists were not allowed to speak at the Democratic National Convention last month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sull won\u2019t sit out the election, but said she would prefer to vote for a third candidate with a viable shot at winning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cProbably like a lot of Americans would if they had that opportunity,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Trump, voters\u2019 overwhelming support for abortion rights could prove a huge liability in swing states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Trump has wobbled in recent months on whether he would veto a national abortion ban, the Supreme Court justices he appointed dismantled abortion access across the country in 2022 \u2014 an unpopular position even in red states such as Kansas, Kentucky and Ohio that since have voted to expand abortion rights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Wisconsin, Planned Parenthood stopped offering abortions at its health clinics after the court\u2019s Dobbs decision because of an 1849 \u201ctrigger\u201d state law that immediately took effect. Wisconsin women lost all abortion services there for a year and a half, until a court re-interpreted the state law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This summer\u2019s shakeup has reset the race, said Amy Walter, publisher of The Cook Political Report, an independent, nonpartisan newsletter that analyzes elections. So far, likely voters in the swing states view Harris more favorably than Biden, she said. But with Trump benefiting from an electorate skeptical of the state of the economy, the newsletter characterized the race as \u201ca battle of inches.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The campaigns both face a lot of voters who are disenchanted with politics altogether, or else unhappy with their options.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amy Tarkanian, a conservative television commentator who once lauded Trump to national audiences and was chair of the Nevada State Republican Party in 2011-12, said she\u2019s at \u201ca complete loss\u201d this year. She remains a Republican, even after the state party heavily criticized her when, two years ago, she endorsed a pair of Democratic candidates for state offices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m not happy, or necessarily sold on Kamala,\u201d Tarkanian said. \u201c\u2026 But I absolutely do not want to vote for Donald Trump.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arizona Mirror\u2019s Jim Small, Michigan Advance\u2019s Anna Liz Nichols and Jon King, Nevada Current\u2019s Hugh Jackson, NC Newsline\u2019s Galen Bacharier, Pennsylvania Capital-Star\u2019s Peter Hall and John Cole, Georgia Recorder\u2019s Ross Williams, and Wisconsin Examiner\u2019s Ruth Conniff and Henry Redman contributed reporting.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a wild election season, these 7 states — with disparate identities and spanning the nation — will decide our next president. By Kevin Hardy\/Stateline Editor’s note: This five-day series explores voter priorities in Arizona, […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14326,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62,77],"tags":[92,84,91],"class_list":{"0":"post-14321","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-slider","8":"category-slider-16","9":"tag-2024-election","10":"tag-arizona","11":"tag-nevada"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14321"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14321\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14332,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14321\/revisions\/14332"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}