Within days, the two candidates, Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Joe Biden, enter the arena of competitive struggle for the position of US President, and each has a number of secured states in their quiver.

Traditionally, the allegiance of 40 states, in addition to Washington, DC, is divided between these two major parties, and 10 states with wavering loyalties remain between them.

The next Trump or Biden victory depends mainly on the outcome of these states' votes, and the US political map is witnessing a wide change in the past few decades.

The political map also witnessed wide changes that were not expected by many experts and commentators as a result of the economic globalization policies adopted by successive democratic and republican administrations, which greatly affected millions of factory workers due to the transfer of the production cycle abroad, where the cost of labor was cheaper, which had a major role in expanding Scope of anger at the ruling political class, especially the Midwest industrial states.

Since the 1968 elections - which followed the legalization of civil rights legislation and the end of all aspects of racial segregation in front of African Americans - many southern states have tilted toward the Republican Party, the northeastern states shifted allegiance to the Democratic Party, while the western coastal states continued to be close to Democrats, When the Republicans asserted their control over many states in the North-Central and Northwest.

Through an analysis made by Al Jazeera Net that combined the traditional state voting pattern during the last 50 years, and the average results of the latest opinion polls regarding next Tuesday's elections, the following table divides the states according to their expected electoral tendencies as follows:

An analysis of Al-Jazeera Net that combined the traditional state voting pattern over the last 50 years with the average results of the latest opinion polls regarding the elections next Tuesday (Al-Jazeera)

A candidate to win the presidency needs to obtain the votes of 270 delegates out of the total votes of 538 members of the Electoral College, reflecting the number of representatives of the different states in the two houses of Congress (the House of Representatives and the Senate).

With the exception of Nebraska and Maine, the rest of the states, as well as the District of Columbia, have a "winner gets all state votes" policy.

According to Al Jazeera Net's analysis, Trump guarantees the votes of 180 delegates from 21 states with a Republican tendency, while the Democrats get 217 delegates from 19 fancy democratic states, in addition to Washington, DC, and the competition remains on 141 delegates distributed over 10 crucial states.


Swinging states that

Trump won in 2016

Nine of the ten swing states that will determine the winner of the 2020 election were won by Trump in the 2016 elections, and the exception remains Nevada.

Since the 1970s, the vote of those states has oscillated between the two parties, and no Democratic or Republican president has ever won one of these states by a large margin than his rival.

In theory, the chances of winning for all of the candidates are converging in these ten states, but opinion polls indicate Trump's superiority in Ohio only, while the average polls give Biden a comfortable victory in the rest of the nine swing states.

Trump needs to immediately win the presidency to obtain 90 votes out of a total of 141 swing votes, or at least 64%, assuming he wins all the traditionally pro-Republican states, and these are the swing states:

Pennsylvania

  • Polls give Biden a 3.8 percent lead, represented by 20 delegates in the electoral college.

  • The state is divided between its rural pro-Republican regions, its major cities such as Philadelphia in the southeast, and Pittsburgh in the northwest, which are pro-Democrats.

  • Pennsylvania voted in the 2008 and 2012 elections for former Democratic President Barack Obama, but in the 2016 elections it voted for Trump by 44,000 votes out of more than 6 million votes, a difference of 0.72%, the smallest margin of victory in the state's presidential elections in 176 years.

Ohio

  • Polls give Trump a lead of less than 1% in this state, which is represented by the 18 delegates in the electoral college.

  • She voted in the 2008 and 2012 elections for Democrat Obama, compared to Trump, the Republican in the 2016 elections.

North Carolina

  • Polls give Biden a lead of less than 1% in this state, which is represented by 15 electoral college delegates.

  • She voted for Obama in the last two presidential elections, as opposed to Trump in the 2016 election.

Wisconsin

  • Polls give Biden a 6.4% lead in the 10-delegate state.

  • She was known for her support for the Democrats through her vote in the 2008 and 2012 elections for Obama, but she turned and voted for Trump in 2016, achieving 47.2% of the vote compared to 46.5% for Hillary Clinton, and Trump won by a margin of only 23,000 votes.

Arizona

  • Polls give Biden a 2.2% advantage, and this state has 11 delegates in the electoral college.

  • Traditionally known for its Republican support, it voted only once for the Democrats in 1996 for Democratic ex-President Bill Clinton, and the massive migrations taking place in Arizona from Mexico are driving the changing nature of the electoral bloc.

Georgia

  • The polls show Biden a 4% lead, and this state has 16 electoral college delegates.

  • Located within the Evangelical Belt states, it was known for its support for the Republicans, but in 1992 she voted for Clinton, then voted for the Republicans in all subsequent elections, until she voted for Trump in 2016.

Florida

  • Polls indicate that Biden has a 2% lead, and this state has 29 delegates in the electoral college

  • Florida has been known to swing its voting loyalty, as it voted in the 2008 and 2012 elections for Obama, as opposed to Trump in 2016.

  • Trump is hard to lose, as he has never lost a Republican candidate in the last 50 years.

Minnesota

  • Polls show Biden a 4.7% lead, and this state has 10 delegates

  • It usually votes for the Democrats, but Trump lost it by a narrow margin of less than 40,000 votes.

Yes

  • Opinion polls show Biden a one-point lead, and this state has 6 electoral votes.

  • Iowa voted for Obama in 2008 and 2016, and Trump won the confidence of its voters in 2016.

Nevada

  • The polls indicate that Biden advanced by more than 4 points, and this state has 6 representatives in the electoral college.

  • She voted for Republican George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004, then Democrat Obama won her confidence in 2008 and 2016, and she voted for Trump 4 years ago.

Facts to consider

  • Associated with the polls' weights is the presence of an average margin of error of 4 points, from here a number of states, such as Arizona, Iowa, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Florida and Georgia, fall within the statistical error rate range.

  • Most polls gave Candidate Hillary Clinton a big lead over Trump in 2016, but the latter has won in all swing states.

  • There is a traditional Republican state that moved into the Democrats' range this year, like Georgia and Arizona, and they weren't among the swing states during the last recent elections.

  • Conversely, traditionally democratic states have moved into the Republican league, such as Wisconsin and Minnesota.

  • Four days before the 2016 election, Clinton averaged 5 points in the polls, while the polls gave Biden an 8-point lead at the same time this year.

  • Trump could win re-election while still losing Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, by sticking to Florida, Arizona and North Carolina, while turning Nevada and New Hampshire in his favor.