These two states could decide it all
Stephen Collinson, Caitlin Hu and Shelby Rose
CNN Meanwhile in America, April 3, 2024
By November, you’ll be bored with hearing about Wisconsin and Michigan.
The two midwestern states might well hold the key to the second terms that both Donald Trump and Joe Biden crave, but that only one can claim.
Because the US electoral system works on a state-by-state basis rather than according to a nationwide popular vote, presidential candidates must plot a path to the White House through a handful of states that are competitive.
This year, in a country that is becoming increasingly polarized, there are even fewer swing states than usual. Nevada, Georgia, Arizona, Pennsylvania and North Carolina make most lists. But there’s a strong case that the election will be decided in Wisconsin and Michigan.
In 2016, Trump won both, shocking Hillary Clinton on turf that her campaign had assumed was solidly Democratic. In 2020, Biden grabbed them back and made Trump a one-termer. The Midwestern pair could be even more critical in 2024. If Biden clings onto Pennsylvania and keeps Michigan and Wisconsin in his column, he will almost certainly be president again. He can even drop two far western states — Arizona and Nevada — that he won last time but that are tight in 2024.
This explains why Wisconsinites and Michiganders will see a lot of Biden and Trump. The former president had both on his itinerary on Tuesday, in a rare venture away from the court room and the golf course. Trump knows that if he can repeat his double win from 2016, Biden will probably have to find a much harder long-shot route to 270 electoral votes, assuming the rest of the map remains stable. The President in fact would have to fashion some combination of Georgia and Arizona that he won in 2020 and North Carolina which Trump carried — to get back to the White House.
Wisconsin and Michigan offer a passable approximation of the US as a whole. Both include cities — like Milwaukee and Detroit and their suburbs — where Democrats prosper and deep red rural areas that Republicans rule. Both reflect Biden’s current troubles. High interests rates and grocery prices are making life tough for many. In Michigan, Arab American voters are critical of the president’s support for Israel in its war in Gaza.
Biden needs to block Trump’s bid to claim a higher share of the Black vote in the cities than Republicans normally get. In Wisconsin, independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. could pose a particular threat to the president among disaffected Democrats. Trump, meanwhile, is trying to play up fears of auto workers around the Motor City that Biden’s support for electric vehicles could cost them their jobs.
So there is an opening for the ex-president in two states that polls suggest are currently too close to call. And then there’s this. These two battlegrounds that could decide the election will probably depend on just a few thousand votes.
