In the United States, there are more than 160 million registered voters. However, election after election, those who truly elect their president are a few hundred thousand, who live in the most contested states, the so-called swing states. Donald Trump came to the White House in 2016 thanks – in part – to his victory in Michigan and Wisconsin, located in the Midwest, as well as Pennsylvania: three key states that had been voting for Democratic candidates for more than a decade. In 2020, Joe Biden managed to turn them around, achieving a narrow victory that earned him the election.
The choice of the location of the Republican and Democratic conventions is no coincidence, where the delegates designated by the primary cycle will elect the candidates from each party to occupy the Oval Office. The Republicans will do so in Milwaukee (Wisconsin) next July and, a month later, the Democratic delegates will vote about 100 kilometers away, in Chicago (Illinois).
Both states belong to a region that in the last decade has become the main theater of the electoral battle: “The Democratic base is in the northeastern states and the west coast, while the Republican base is in the south and the interior west “This puts the Midwest in a position that can tip the elections to one side or the other,” says Dennis Goldford, professor of Political Science at Drake University, located in Des Moines (Iowa).
Predictably, it will be decided again in this electoral year that has begun, precisely, in Iowa, a state that elevated Barack Obama in 2008 and revalidated him in 2012, but that has taken a turn to the right since Trump’s arrival on the scene. policy.
His overwhelming victory in the caucuses held this Monday, with more than 51% of the votes and with 30 points of difference with respect to his main Republican rivals, is not representative of the region: Iowa is a rural state, mostly white (87.93 %) and Christian (75%), while other Midwestern states are industrial and more diverse. But he does show a trend: despite his two impeachments (political trials), his four accusations and his controversies, the magnate maintains the support of his electorate.
The Democrats “have no chance of winning here in November”: that’s how blunt Goldford is. Although a decade ago Iowa was considered a swing state, currently “its six representatives in Congress (2 in the Senate and 4 in the House of Representatives) are Republicans. So are the governor and the attorney general, as well as 64 of the 100 representatives in the state Lower House and 34 of the 50 senators.”
Timothy Hagle of the University of Iowa disagrees. “Many analyzes agree that Iowa has turned red (Republican). I disagree: if we look at the number of registered voters, a third are Democrats, another are Republicans, and another, The latter, who make up the group of undecided people, are the ones who will tip the balance,” he says. “Although they have voted Republican in the last two elections, Trump won by a handful of votes, and Democrats still have ground to cover.”
For the elections on November 5, the main American media agree that there will be six key states: Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. Together, they only add up to 77 of the 270 electoral votes necessary to win the elections, but they are the most valuable. According to a recent survey published by The New York Times, Trump leads Biden in all of them except Wisconsin, the place chosen for the Republican National Convention.
Two of these key states – three, if you count Pennsylvania – are in the Midwest: Michigan and Wisconsin. Therefore, it is not surprising that they are among the states in which the most investment is being made in propaganda, with both parties hunting for your vote, especially in the suburbs.
“Bipartisan political interest in the Midwest has deep roots, dating back to 1948. Democrat Harry Truman surprised pollsters, the press and pundits by defeating Republican Thomas E. Dewey, thanks to his narrow victory in key states in the region: Illinois, Ohio, Wisconsin and Iowa,” explains W. Joseph Campbell, author of Lost in a Gallup, which chronicles the historic failures of polls in the US presidential elections. “In fact, both launched their campaign in Iowa”, which already at that time – before becoming the first state in the primary process in 1972 – was of vital importance for the race to the White House.