00:00Both Vice President Harris and former President Trump are trying to get to the magic number,
00:04which is 270 electoral votes.
00:07The swing states are going to be key in this election cycle.
00:11And those are the states that are going to determine where the election is won or lost.
00:15Even if Vice President Harris is ahead in a national poll, the popular vote doesn't
00:18elect the president, it's Electoral College.
00:21So she could be up nationally, she could win more votes than Trump nationally, but she
00:24could still lose the election if she doesn't win the Electoral College.
00:27So that's why the swing states are so important, because those are going to be the states that
00:31both candidates are going to need to get to 270 and above.
00:35Arizona is a key Sunbelt state, and it has 11 electoral votes.
00:40And it's really a really important state because it was Republican-leaning for decades.
00:46Democrats really didn't have a lot of success there.
00:48When Joe Biden won it in 2020, that was the first time a Democratic nominee had won that
00:53state since Bill Clinton.
00:55And right now, Vice President Harris and former President Trump are really locked in
00:58a tight race there.
01:00And Harris has been trying to use her record as California attorney general to say that
01:04she will be tough on drug cartels and that she will be strong on immigration.
01:08Before I was elected vice president, I was an elected United States senator.
01:15Before that, before that, I was an elected attorney general, and before that, an elected
01:22district attorney.
01:25So that's really moved the needle in that race and made it a lot more competitive than
01:29it was earlier this year.
01:30Across the Sunbelt, she's really been an effective messenger for the administration and now in
01:34her own campaign, in terms of speaking about abortion and reproductive rights.
01:38Now over 20 states in our country have a Trump abortion ban, many with no exceptions.
01:46Georgia is a critical southern swing state that has 16 electoral votes.
01:51It's one of the most important swing states because it's very highly contested.
01:55This is a state that had trended Republican on the presidential level for years.
02:00Biden won it narrowly in 2020, and he won it by about 12,000 votes.
02:05It was a very narrow win, and for years, Trump said that he was the one that actually won
02:09the state.
02:10I've been in two elections.
02:11I won them both, and the second one, I won much bigger than the first, okay?
02:16Trump tried to overturn the results, and it really created, in many ways, a yearlong feud
02:21between Trump and those officials.
02:23Once Biden stepped aside as nominee, Harris came into the race, and she really immediately
02:28made that state competitive again.
02:30Right now, it's basically about a 50-50 race.
02:34Michigan is a key industrial state.
02:37Michigan has 15 electoral votes, and it's really important because this is one of the
02:41core states of the Blue Wall, and the Blue Wall is the series of states that Democrats
02:46have won since 1992.
02:48From 1992 to 2012, Michigan only voted for Democratic presidential nominees, but Trump
02:54flipped it in 2016, narrowly, against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and Biden
02:59won it back in 2020.
03:01And the reason why Trump won it in 2016, not only was he able to make in-rows of union
03:05households, but he really was able to get some of the working class voters who had voted
03:09for Democrats in the past, who were attracted to his economic message, and sided with him
03:13over that.
03:14Biden was able to get a lot of those traditional Democratic voters back, and those voters,
03:18in many ways, are for grabs this year.
03:20I will say, unions are going to be a really big part of the equation in Michigan.
03:25The recent Teamsters non-endorsement of either Harris or Trump is going to be important.
03:29This is the first time that the Teamsters haven't endorsed a presidential candidate
03:32since 1996.
03:34Nevada is a small state with six electoral votes, but it's going to be mighty as both
03:39candidates are fighting for those electoral votes.
03:42It's really important, largely because it really was impacted by the economy during
03:46the pandemic and afterwards.
03:48Especially in Las Vegas, tourism is basically the industry, and for a while, tourists weren't
03:54coming back.
03:55It really impacted everything from the food industry to the hotel sector, and Democrats
04:00really rely on those culinary workers to really help turn the vote up in that state.
04:06But also, a lot of those voters have been swayed by Donald Trump's economic message.
04:10He said that, hey, you know, I can bring back the economy that we had before the pandemic.
04:15We will rescue our economy.
04:17We will crush inflation.
04:18Even though inflation has gone down, a lot of voters, that's still at the top of mind
04:22because they have, you know, had to deal with that issue over the past few years.
04:26But in terms of the electorate, it's a very diverse population.
04:29The Latino vote in Nevada is going to be really important.
04:32Harris and Trump are both trying to court the Latino vote, and that's definitely going
04:36to be the determination.
04:37We know our immigration system is broken, and we know what it takes to fix it.
04:46North Carolina is a key Southern battleground, and it has 16 electoral votes.
04:51It's very economically diverse.
04:53You have a large rural population, and then you have large metropolitan areas anchored
04:58in Raleigh, anchored in Charlotte.
05:01And you have just a really strong contingent of swing voters.
05:05You also have a large Black population in North Carolina.
05:07So it's a state where Republicans have seen more success on the presidential level, but
05:13Barack Obama was the only Democrat to win, other than Jimmy Carter, since 1976.
05:18It's going to be harder for Democrats.
05:19In 2012, they came close but didn't win.
05:23In 2020, they were a point away from winning.
05:25And Harris thinks that they can win this state, but Republicans are still well-positioned there.
05:31Pennsylvania is going to be key in this election, and it has 19 electoral votes.
05:36So whoever wins Pennsylvania really is going to be well-positioned to win the presidency.
05:40And it's a place where there are a lot of the more industrial-working voters who have
05:44kind of gravitated towards Republican candidates recently.
05:47A lot of those voters voted for Donald Trump in 2016, which allowed him to flip the state
05:51that year.
05:52But Biden won that state back.
05:55Harris doesn't have that strong of a relationship with those sorts of voters that Biden has,
05:59so she's really been trying to shore up her support with those voters.
06:03For Trump, he's going to run up the vote in those rural counties, and he's also going
06:06to try to make inroads in Pittsburgh with union voters.
06:10One of the key issues in Pennsylvania this year is fracking.
06:14It's an oil and gas drilling technique that is controversial to some, but has really contributed
06:18to an energy boom in the state.
06:20And it's something that Republicans have really tried to attack Harris with because when Harris
06:25was running for the 2020 nomination, she said that she opposed the practice.
06:29But she's come out this year and said that that's not a position that I have anymore.
06:32She said that she would not stop fracking if she was in the White House.
06:36And she basically has tried to move on from the issue.
06:38I think she's going to do very badly in Pennsylvania.
06:41You have to frack.
06:42We need the energy.
06:43And Pennsylvania needs the jobs, but Pennsylvania needs the energy also.
06:47Whoever wins the economic argument in that state, they're going to be very likely to
06:51win the presidency.
06:53Wisconsin has 10 electoral votes and is by far the most important swing state in the
06:58election this year.
06:59Biden won about 20,000 votes in 2020.
07:02Former President Trump won it in 2016, very narrowly.
07:052016, it basically was the tipping point state.
07:09It was the state where once Trump won it, it basically decided the presidency.
07:13Wisconsin is a state where there are a lot of voters there that really truly are swing
07:18voters.
07:19It's probably going to be decided by a very tight margin.
07:21And both candidates know that they've devoted lots of time there.
07:25Even though Nebraska's second congressional district only has one electoral vote, that
07:30could determine who wins the election.
07:32In most states, whoever wins the majority of votes in that particular state wins the
07:36entire share of the electoral votes.
07:39But in Nebraska, it's different.
07:41It's allocated by district, by congressional district.
07:44This year has been really unique because Republicans really tried to make an effort to change the
07:49law so that basically it would be a winner-take-all state.
07:52So far, their efforts have failed.
07:54The stakes of this election are so high that both parties really are fighting for this
07:58one electoral vote, because it really could make the difference in who gets to 270.
08:03These swing states really, truly do hold the key to the White House.
08:07They represent every single demographic.
08:09This election is expected to be so close.
08:12And in the swing states, the races could be decided by thousands or even hundreds of votes.
08:18It's really that competitive.
08:19And for Vice President Harris and for former President Trump, every vote's going to matter.
08:28For more UN videos visit www.un.org
Comments