In detail | Which States may have the key to the electoral result?

Polls indicate that this will be a close election and defined by a few States, as happened in 2016 and 2020. There are seven, known as pendular or hinge states (swing states in English)who have the key: Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina, Michigan, Arizona, Wisconsin and Nevada. But what makes these states so important?

In the United States, the popular vote, that is, the number of individual votes each candidate obtains, does not determine who wins. At least not directly. There, each State has a certain number of votes in the Electoral collegewhich is the institution that ultimately decides who will be president, in relation to its population. That is to say, States with more inhabitants have more electoral votes. California, for example, has 54 votes, while Delaware has 3.

The candidate who obtains the most popular votes in a State is the one who takes all the electoral votesand whoever obtains the majority of electoral votes at the national level is the winner. The number needed to win is 270 Electoral College votes.

There are States with a very defined voting tradition, in which it is almost certainly known in advance who will be the winner. In Tennessee, for example, a conservative territory, Trump is expected to win easily. The same thing happens with Harris in California, a State with a long and established progressive tradition.

And that’s where the seven hinges come in. Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina, Michigan, Arizona, Wisconsin and Nevada are important because They do not have a marked political tendency and their voters still don’t know for sure who to vote for. That is why it is most likely that their votes will end up tipping the balance towards one side or the other.