The news programs generally talk about there being seven battleground states this year, where the real fight for the presidency is going to happen. The reason battleground states exist is we have an electoral college, where each state Alexa number of people, depending on its population, and they all get together in their state capitals, then they send the results to Washington, and you need 270 electoral votes to win. Well, most of the states are pretty well known how they’re gonna vote, right? New York and California are going to vote for the Democrats and Texas and Florida gonna vote for the Republicans, et cetera, et cetera.

The seven states are Arizona and Nevada, in the West, Georgia and North Carolina, in the south of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin in the Great Lakes steak areas.

Now, the truth is, is that four of those seven really are in battlegrounds. The elections decided it’s the ones in the south and west that are that way. Just let me give you some statistics. What matters in when you look at polls? Is not is this person ahead of the other person? It’s by how much? And how consistently are they ahead? Because one poll can be an extreme outlier one way or the other. But if you see poll after poll after poll producing the same result, you can be more confident. So let me give you the statistics. In Arizona, Trump is ahead by 5.2 points on average. He has been ahead in the last 18 polls. And the last time Biden had an edge was April of 2023 over a year ago.

And it’s somewhat similar in Nevada. There Trump has a 6.2% lead. He’s led in the last 15 polls. And it was last October that Biden first had an edge or last had an edge. As far as the polling numbers go. In North Carolina. Trump is ahead by 5.4 points on average, as lead in the LAX 16 polls. And you have to go back to last March, march 23, for the last time that Biden lead. And finally, Georgia, Trump leads by 4.6 points. He has led in the last 21 polls in Georgia, the last time Biden was ahead was last November. So as you can see, the polling results are very consistent. And that suggests those are not really battleground states right now. They could become that way, but they’re not now.

Now, the silver lining in all that for Biden is that the remaining three states have 44 electoral votes. And if he wins the mall, he will win the electoral college by a margin of 270 to 268. That’s as close as it gets. But what’s happening in those states? Well, in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, Trump is still ahead. But by less than a point in Wisconsin and Michigan, and by only two points in Pennsylvania, looking at the last set of polls that have happened so far this year.

In Wisconsin, it’s nine polls for Trump, two polls for Biden and for ties. In Michigan. It’s 12. Polls for Trump, three for Biden, and one is the tie. And Pennsylvania 12. Polls for Trump. Five for Biden, and three are a tie. So when you look at those numbers, there’s a lot of confusion. And it’s not a clear cut case like it was anywhere else.

Now, why are we doing it this way, state by state by electoral college? Well, when the Constitution was written, states controlled their own voting rules fully, they still do technically. And states could have different types of franchises. So some states could let everybody vote and they would dominate the national party vote. You now have a case for example, where DC is trying to let non citizens go vote. Well, that would increase the DC vote wouldn’t necessarily be fair to the other states to let one state let everyone vote and other states not let non citizens vote. And how do we make decisions? Well, we have each have many, many different attributes.

Gender, education, income, race, ethnicity, religion, marital status, and different ones incline us to vote different ways. So for example, you’ve heard of the gender gap. Well, it turns out, it’s really a marital status gap. Married men and married women tend to vote the same. But unmarried women overwhelmingly tend to vote for the Democrats.

unmarried men are slightly inclined toward the Republicans as our married people. Or when it comes to education, Republicans tend to win those who graduated high school and have at least some College Democrats tend to win those who did not complete high school, and those who have advanced degrees in income,

Democrats tend to win those making less than 30,000 and those making over 200,000. And Republicans tend to win everyone in the middle religion, which is a surprisingly important attribute. If you’re a regular church grower, you’re probably a Republican. If you don’t go to church, you’re probably a Democrat. And again, in marital status, if you’re married, you tend to be Republican. If you’re not married, you tend to be Democrat. But people are parts of all of these things, and they come together. So what matters in a state is whether or not you have diversity in your voting group, or whether everyone’s the same New York and San Francisco singles out number marrieds, for example, very few people go to church and the elites are very important.

In small towns, rural areas, it’s the opposite. Most people are married to attend church and tend to be blue collar or low white collar workers.

So different regions would tend to vote for different parties. The thing about the Midwest, the Great Lakes states, they have always been the battleground states, because the people in those states are much more diverse than they are elsewhere. And as a result, we’re coming down to an almost classic close election. It’ll be the Great Lakes State states that determine the outcome. And right now, I think it’s going to be Pennsylvania that is going to be the state that we’re going to have to watch the closest.