This reasoning naturally does not take into account possible surprises. Each election in reserve for the candidates. Did Hillary Clinton imagine losing in Michigan and Wisconsin in 2016, and Joe Biden winning in Arizona and Georgia in 2020? It does not take into consideration the most improbable configurations that votes can lead to in the “pivotal states”, or even in the others: a final poll from the newspaper “Des Moines Register” on Sunday gave a 3% advantage to Kamala Harris in very conservative Iowa! If, extraordinarily, the stars align, we obtain a final result that nothing predicted. Thus Barack Obama, who we thought would win narrowly at best, ended up triumphing in 2008 thanks to a tidal wave: with 365 voters against only 173 for John McCain.
“Alabama without the blacks”
If the outcome should therefore a priori depend on the choice in six other “swing states” (North Carolina, Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona and Nevada), Pennsylvania logically remained until the end the one where the two candidates did not didn’t intend to let go. They campaigned there intensely – Donald Trump was even almost assassinated there on July 13. And the Democrats pursued a new strategy there. They know full well that the cities are theirs and that the rural areas prefer the Republicans; according to the famous formula of consultant James Carville, between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, it is “Alabama without the blacks”. This is, however, no reason, they think, to desert the battlefield.
Kamala Harris’ team therefore innovated by opening around fifty campaign offices throughout Pennsylvania (a state four times the size of Belgium, with 13 million inhabitants), including around fifteen in counties where Donald Trump won in 2020 by more than 10%. The objective is obviously not to hope to win where the Republicans are in a solid majority, as in Somerset County, southeast of Pittsburgh, but to reduce these majorities as much as possible, so as to inflate the total. votes that Harris will collect statewide. With two exceptions (Maine and Nebraska), states allocate all of their electoral votes to the candidate who ranks first (“winner-take-all”). To remove Pennsylvania, it’s simple: you have to amass as many votes as possible, no matter where.
American election: what would happen in the event of an absolute tie between Harris and Trump?
The crucial importance of legislative elections
This unprecedented investment was obviously essential for the presidential election, knowing to what extent the fight is once again undecided in Pennsylvania. Donald Trump won in 2016, by 44,000 votes out of nearly six million, before losing, in 2020, by 81,000 votes. But the mobilization was also supposed to help the Democrats in the legislative elections, as they want to retain the majority in the Senate and reconquer it in the House of Representatives. We are voting, in fact, on Tuesday, to renew the 435 deputies in Congress and 34 of the 100 senators. But Pennsylvania is on the front line on these two fronts as well.
The Democratic Party faces the senatorial elections in a weak position, with more seats to defend than the Republican Party, which is why it will be very difficult for it to maintain its current fragile majority (51 seats out of 100). Around ten elections are being followed with interest, each of which could potentially reverse the balance of power in the future Senate: from Maryland to Montana, from Arizona to Michigan, from Ohio to Nevada, and even in Texas, where the future of Ted Cruz, a former rival of Donald Trump turned courtier, is threatened by the good performance of his Democratic opponent, Colin Allred.
In Montana, a showdown for control of the Senate
Pennsylvania is also one of those states where the incumbent senator is in an ejection seat. Bob Casey is seeking a fourth six-year term and the cause has long seemed to have been won, with opinion polls crediting the Democrat with a lead of 5 to 8% over his Republican opponent, Dave McCormick. The gap, however, closed to place the two men in a tight spot. Casey has, on his side, the notoriety and can invoke the judgment of… Donald Trump, who once saw, in McCormick, “a Wall Street Republican”: he is the former CEO of Bridgewater Associates, one of the largest hedge funds in the world. world. The outcome is no less uncertain.
Trois “swing districts”
And what about the impact of Pennsylvania on the next majority in the House! Three districts, the 7th, 8th and 10th, are swing districts in a swing state. The first two are held by Democratic deputies, Susan Wild and Matt Cartwright, while the third is held by a Republican, Scott Perry. All are fighting for a new two-year term. Cartwright’s case is particularly attracting attention: his constituency includes Scranton, the hometown of Joe Biden, despite which Donald Trump won there in 2020.
Finally, on the sidelines of these ballots, during which Americans will also elect their representatives at the state level and many holders of authority at the local level, from judges to sheriffs, referendums are organized on multiple subjects. public interest, from education to justice or health. Those on the introduction of constitutional protection of the right to abortion, in eight states (Arizona, Colorado, South Dakota, Florida, Maryland, Missouri, Nevada and New York), are likely to mobilize voters. With an influence on the presidential election that we will soon measure.
