Every four years when the presidential election comes around, the electoral college starts to fill in like a puzzle. News anchors and broadcasters often zoom into the current county results. There’s always an emphasis on certain counties due to their population, culture, demographics, and institutions. I have come up with a list of the five swing counties that will decide the presidential election: Maricopa County in Arizona, Dane County in Wisconsin, Door County in Wisconsin, Macomb County in Michigan, and Philadelphia County in Pennsylvania.
Maricopa County Arizona voted republican for most elections before 2020 when it flipped blue for President Biden by 11,000 votes. This county has a high percentage of college educated suburbanites which typically bodes well for the Democratic Party. On the other hand, the county is about one-third Hispanic, a group Republicans have had political gains from. In all, Maricopa makes up about two-thirds of this critical swing state’s total population.
Now on to Dane County Wisconsin where there were 350,000 voters in 2020. This county broke 75% for Joe Biden. Since this is where the University of Wisconsin is located, some Democrats fear that young voters will not vote for Harris due to the war in Gaza. On the other hand, the issue of abortion could motivate voters to get out. If the Democrats can’t get the margin out of Dane County on Tuesday night, it will prove to be fatal to them in Wisconsin statewide.
In Macomb County, Michigan Democrats had been winning from the time of FDR to Obama. This is a place of union Democrats where car manufacturing ran the economy and people did well. Then many factories left, and many voters realigned themselves with the Republicans. Joe Biden did much better than Hillary Clinton in this area. Harris is trying to hold steady in places like this and run her number up in nearby Detroit. If Trump can get a margin that counteracts Detroit, he can win in the state of Michigan.
In Philadelphia County in Pennsylvania, Democrats are hoping to pull off a massive margin that will propel them to victory. In 2020 there were more than 700,000 voters in this county and Democrat Joe Biden won 83% percent of these voters.
Donald Trump hopes to cut into this margin by making gains with minorities. You can expect Harris to focus heavenly on this area and to make many campaigns stops out here. The Trump strategy is to cut Democrat’s path victory off with a lackluster performance in Philadelphia which would allow the rural part of the state to take over.
In Door County Wisconsin we saw about 20,000 votes in 2020. Joe Biden won it 49.9 to 48.5 and Door County has voted for the winner of every election since 2000. It has been a bellwether because of its blue-collar status mixed with the artistic appeal of the bay. It has a strong divide and will surely be close this time around and so will the state of Wisconsin.
When election night comes around on November 5th, 2024 and the news networks show the electoral map and focus on these key counties. Look up their results from 2020 and compare them and you will probably know who is winning.
