Both Vice President Harris and former President Trump are trying
to get to the magic number, which is 270 electoral
votes.
The swing states, they're going to be key in this
election cycle.
And those are the states that are going to determine
where the election is won or lost.
Even if Vice President Harris is ahead in a national
poll, the popular vote doesn't elect the president.
It's Electoral College.
So she could be up nationally, She could win more
votes than Trump nationally, but she could still lose the
election if she doesn't win the Electoral College.
So that's why the swing series are so important because
those going to be the states that both candidates are
going to need to get 270 and above.
Arizona is a key Sunbelt state and it has 11
electoral votes.
And it's really a really important state because it was
Republican leaning for decades.
Democrats really had didn't have a lot of success there
when Joe Biden won it in 2020.
That was the first time the Democratic nominee had won
that state since Bill Clinton.
And right now, as president, Harris and former President Trump
are really locked in a tight race there.
And Harris has been trying to use her record as
California attorney general to say that she'll be tough on
drug cartels and that she will be strong on immigration.
Before I was elected vice president, I was an elected
United States senator before that.
Before that, I was an elected attorney general, and before
that an elected District Attorney.
So that's really moved the needle in that race and
made it a lot more competitive than it was earlier
this year across the Sunbelt.
She's really been an effective messenger for the administration and
now in her own campaign in terms of speaking about
abortion and reproductive rights.
Now, over 20 states in our country have a Trump
abortion ban, many with no exceptions.
Georgia is a critical southern swing state.
It has 16 electoral votes, and it's one of the
most important swing states because it's very highly contested.
This is a state that had trended Republican on the
presidential level for years.
Biden won it narrowly in 2020, and he won about
about 12,000 votes.
It was a very narrow win.
And for years, Trump said that he was the one
that actually won the state.
I've been in two elections.
I won them both and the second one I won
much bigger than the first.
OK.
Trump tried to overturn the results and it really created
in many ways a year longs feud between Trump and
those officials.
Once Biden stepped aside, his nominee Harris came into the
race and she really immediately made that stay competitive again.
Right now, it's basically about a 5050 race.
Michigan is a key industrial state.
Michigan has 15 electoral votes.
And it's really important because this is one of the
core states of the blue wall.
And the blue wall is the series of states that
Democrats have won since 1992.
From 1992 to 2012, Michigan only voted for Democratic presidential
nominees, but Trump flipped it in 2016 narrowly against former
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
And Biden won it back in 2020.
And the reason why Trump won it in 2016, not
only was he able to make inroads of union households,
but he really was able to get some of the
working class voters who had voted for Democrats in the
past who were attracted to his economic message and sided
with him over that.
Biden was able to get a lot of those traditional
Democratic voters back and those voters in many ways are
for grabs this year.
I will say unions are going to be a really
big part of the equation in Michigan.
The recent Teamsters non endorsement of either Harris or Trump
is going to be This is the first time that
the team shows haven't endorsed the president of candidates in
1996.
Nevada is a small state with six electoral votes, but
it's going to be mighty as both candidates are fighting
for those electoral votes.
It's really important largely because it really was impacted by
the economy during the pandemic and afterwards, especially in Las
Vegas.
Tourism is basically the industry, and for a while tourists
weren't coming back.
It really impacted everything from the food industry to hotel
sector.
And Democrats really rely on those culinary workers to really
help turn the vote up in that state.
But also, a lot of those voters have been swayed
by Donald Trump's economic message.
He said that, hey, you know, I can bring back
the economy that we had before the pandemic.
We will rescue our economy.
We will crush inflation.
Even though inflation has gone down, a lot of voters
are still at the top of mind because they have,
you know, had to deal with that issue over the
past few years.
But in terms of the electorate, it's a very diverse
population.
The Latino vote in Nevada is going to be really
important.
Harris and Trump are both trying to court the Latino
vote, and that's definitely going to be the determination.
We know our immigration system is broken and we know
what it takes to fix it.
North Carolina is a key Southern battleground, and it has
16 electoral votes.
It's very economically diverse.
You have a large rural population and then you have
large metropolitan areas anchored in Raleigh, anchored in Charlotte, and
you have just a really strong contingent of swing voters.
We also have a large black population in North Carolina.
So it's a state where Republicans have seen more success
or the presidential level.
But Barack Obama was the only Democrat to win other
than Jimmy Carter since 1976.
It's going to be harder for Democrats.
In 2012, they came close but didn't win.
In 2020, they were a point away from winning.
And Harris thinks that they can win the state, but
Republicans are still well positioned there.
Pennsylvania is going to be key in this election.
And it has 19 electoral votes.
So whoever wins Pennsylvania really is going to be well
positioned to win the presidency.
And it's a place where there are a lot of
the more industrial working voters who have kind of gravitated
towards Republican candidates recently.
A lot of those voters voted for Donald Trump in
2016, which allowed him to flip the state that year.
But Biden won that state back.
Harris doesn't have that strong of a relationship with those
sorts of voters that Biden has.
So she's really been trying to shore up her support
with those voters for Trump.
He's going to run up their vote in those rural
counties, and he's also going to try to make inroads
in Pittsburgh with union voters.
One of the key issues in Pennsylvania this year is
fracking.
It's an oil and gas drilling technique that is controversial
to some but has really contributed to an energy boom
in the state.
And it's something that Republicans have really tried to attack
Harris with because when Harris was running the 2020 nomination,
she said that she opposed to practice.
But she's come out this year and said that that's
not a position that I have anymore.
She said that she would not stop fracking if she
was in the White House.
And she basically has tried to move on from the
issue.
I think she's going to do very badly in Pennsylvania.
You have to frack we need the energy and Pennsylvania
needs the jobs, but Pennsylvania needs the energy also.
Whoever wins the economic argument in that state, they're going
to be very likely to win the presidency.
Wisconsin has 10 electoral votes and is by far the
most important swing state in the election this year.
Biden won about 20,000 votes in 2020.
Former President Trump wanted in 2016 very narrowly and 2016,
it basically was the tipping point state.
It was the state where once Trump won it, it
basically decided the presidency.
Wisconsin is a state where there are a lot of
voters there that really, truly are swing voters.
It's probably going to be decided by a very tight
margin, and both candidates know that.
They've devoted lots of time there.
Even though Nebraska's second Congressional District only has one electoral
vote that could determine who wins the election, In most
states, whoever wins the majority of votes in that particular
state wins the entire share of the electoral votes.
But in Nebraska, it's different.
It's allocated by district by Congressional District.
This year has been really unique because Republicans really tried
to make an effort to change the law so that
basically it would be a winner take Allstate.
So far, their efforts have failed.
The stakes of this election are so high that both
parties really are fighting for this one electoral vote because
it really could make the difference in who gets to
270.
These swing states really, truly do hold the key to
the White House.
They represent every single demographic.
This election is expected to be so close.
And in the swing states, the races could be decided
by thousands or even hundreds of votes.
It's really that competitive.
And for Vice President Harris and for former President Trump,
every votes going to matter.