Experts predict that just 6% of voters in six states will decide this years US Presidential Election…

I was listening to a podcast that said that although 244 million people are eligible to vote in the US, due to the quirks of the US electoral college system, it could all come down to 81,000 voters in 6 key states.

From Axios:

The titanic Biden-Trump election likely will be decided by roughly 6% of voters in just six states, top strategists in both parties tell us.

Each side will spend billions to reach those voters over the next six months.

Why it matters: Roughly 244 million Americans will be eligible to vote. But 99.5% of us won’t be deciders: We won’t vote. Or we always vote the same way. Or we live in states virtually certain to be red or blue.

Zoom in: Both campaigns are obsessed with six states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Those were the battlegrounds disputed by Donald Trump after the 2020 election. And they’re the ’24 toss-ups, as rated by The Cook Political Report with Amy Walter.
A seventh state, North Carolina, is included in some swing-state polls. It’s rated “Lean R” by Cook. The other 43 states are either “solid” or “likely” for one of the parties.
Reality check: In our private conversations, Democrats are a lot more worried about November than Republicans are. Democrats say the race is winnable. Republicans think they’re winning. The swing-state map is a big reason why.

An April poll of swing states by Bloomberg and Morning Consult found President Biden two points ahead in Michigan, with Trump ahead or statistically tied in every other swing state.
Trump was ahead by a sizable 6 points across the seven states polled. (The margin of error was 1 point. The poll didn’t include independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.)
Between the lines: The Trump campaign is talking to that 6% of persuadable voters when it hammers immigration, crime and inflation.

Biden is aiming at the 6% when he emphasizes abortion, democracy and stability — and says in response to Trump’s vows for a second term: “Do you want to go back to any of that? I don’t think so.”
By the numbers: Biden’s winning margin in the six swing states in 2020 totaled just over 300,000 votes out of 158 million cast for president nationwide.

The Washington Post found that the winner would have changed by flipping just over 81,000 votes in four states (Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin and Georgia).
Zoom out: We perked up our ears when we heard a Biden insider use the “6% of six states” formulation as a proxy for how narrow a group of voters are considered truly in play — swing voters in swing states.

Republicans are making a similar calculation. A Trump insider told us that persuadable voters are below 10% in every battleground: “I think it’s probably 6% in Wisconsin but 8% in Michigan, and lower in Arizona.”
The big picture: Doug Sosnik, a senior adviser to President Clinton and widely followed election oracle, tells us the map is so narrow largely because states are tightly clustered by educational level, turning them predictably red or blue.

“Education now transcends race as the best predictor of voting,” he told us. “People are increasingly choosing to live around others who share their values and beliefs, which has led to a homogenization of how communities vote.”

This year’s campaign will be fascinating. There is a high possibility that either one of the aged contenders could take ill during the strenuous campaign or even die. Both candidates have health concerns; it is all very bizarre how they ended up with an 81-year-old vs. 77-year-old for the most challenging job in the world.

Both sides are very nervous about the potential uses of AI to fabricate fake news. With so little between the candidates even subtle use of AI could be enough to tip the balance either way.

I help to manage Slugger by taking care of the site as well as running our live events. My background is in business, marketing and IT. My politics tend towards middle-of-the-road pragmatism, I am not a member of any political party. Oddly for a member of the Slugger team, I am not that interested in daily politics, preferring to write about big ideas in society. When not stuck in front of a screen, I am a parkrun Run Director.