What to know about the key battleground states in the 2024 election

 

A person picks up a sticker while voters head to a polling station as Georgians turned out a day after the battleground state opened early voting, in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S., October 16, 2024. REUTERS/Megan Varner 

Megan Varner/Reuters

Both Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump have spent considerable time in a handful of states during their presidential campaigns as they race to make their pitch to voters.

The campaigns have put their focus and efforts there as these battleground states are likely to decide who wins the election.

Here’s what to know about them:

• Arizona: The Grand Canyon State remains a key battleground up and down the ballot. Two voting groups will be key to deciding who wins the state — Latino voters, who make up a third of the state’s population; and the right-leaning independent voters in Maricopa County who used to consistently vote Republican.
• Georgia: The Peach State took center stage in 2020, flipping blue for the first time in nearly 30 years. Georgia is now back in play after it looked to be lost to Democrats with President Joe Biden leading the ticket. Key suburban counties in and around the metro Atlanta area such as Cobb, Dekalb, Gwinnett and Fulton counties will still be ones to watch this cycle: All of them went for Biden in 2020.
• Michigan: Biden flipped Michigan in 2020 by nearly 3 percentage points after Trump won the state in 2016 as the first Republican to do so since 1988. But Harris may have a harder time matching Biden’s performance among union voters, and Michigan’s Muslim and Arab American communities have expressed their dissatisfaction with the administration’s response to Israel’s war in Gaza. Trump has made appeals to Black and Latino men.
• Nevada: While Republicans haven’t won Nevada since 2004, this could be the year that breaks the trend. Nevada moved to the right relative to the nation in 2020: Even as Biden won the national popular vote by more than Hillary Clinton had four years earlier. Because of the state’s tourism industry, the issue of ending taxes on tips is especially important here. Republicans are also trying to cut into Harris’ margins with Latino voters, especially Latino men.
• North Carolina: This state stands squarely in the middle of the path to the White House for both Harris and Trump. North Carolina is one of the most evenly divided in the country, and while Barack Obama won the state in 2008, Republicans have won it narrowly every election since, even as states like Georgia and Arizona have moved away from them.
• Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania is the most important battleground state of the 2024 election. Both Harris and Trump have made the commonwealth’s 19 electoral votes central to their respective paths to victory. In 2016, Trump became the first Republican to win Pennsylvania since George H.W. Bush in 1988. Biden flipped the state in 2020.
• Wisconsin: In four of the last six presidential elections, Wisconsin has been decided by less than a percentage point on the presidential level. In 2016, Trump won Wisconsin by 0.7 percentage points. In 2020, Biden flipped the state, winning by 0.6 percentage points. Four years later, Harris and Trump are poised for a photo-finish once again.