Could Kamala Harris shift the swing states to the Democrats?

By Alex Waddan, University of Leicester, Clodagh Harrington, University College Cork

The full consequences of Joe Biden’s seismic decision to withdraw from the 2024 presidential race will take some time to be felt. One immediately apparent outcome is the change of election dynamic that comes with a presumptive nominee who ticks a range of different identity boxes including gender, age and ethnicity.

Importantly, the big question is whether she can win over swing voters, especially those in a set of states that regularly move between the Republicans and Democrats in elections, making it difficult to predict which candidate will triumph on polling day.

Most other (non-swing) states are seen as predictable or at least as leaning towards one party’s candidate. That means candidate time and money is lavished on these swing states, which in 2024 include Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

They count for so much because the president is not elected by the overall popular vote but by winning each state. Each state carries a specific number of votes, with states possessing big populations garnering the most votes.

For instance, Pennsylvania holds 19 votes and California 54. This system is called the electoral college (EC), and the EC vote in nearly all states is distributed on a winner-take-all basis. Since the EC has 538 votes, candidates need to win states that have a combined EC total of 270 to be elected president.

It is forecast that Kamala Harris might have more ability to reduce the shift of ethnic minority voters to Donald Trump. She might also be better able to exploit Republican electoral weakness on the issue of reproductive rights, but might have less appeal to white voters without a college education. The concern for Democrats is that this last group of voters is over-represented in critical mid-west swing states such as Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

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