By Athena Papakosta

One and today until the mother of battles, the presidential elections in the United States of America.

Tomorrow, Tuesday, November 5, those American voters who have not already exercised their right to vote by mail will go to the polls.

The goal is to elect a president who will rule a nation of more than 330 million people. However, his election will depend on a few tens of thousands of voters, a small fraction of the population, in a number of States and, to be precise, in only seven out of a total of 50.

Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin represent the so-called States – Keys or Amphibious Statesbecause they change hands and, to be precise, political camp, with the result that they alternate between the Republicans and the Democrats. For this reason they are considered crucial for the election result and the emergence of the winner.

How is it possible, one might think, that the result of the American elections is decided by a handful of people and States and not, only, by the popular vote, as is the case in Greece for example?

Let’s take things in order.

At American electoral system there is a filter between the popular vote and the final selection of the winner. It is an intermediate stage, that of the political institution of of electors or Electoral College.

They make it up 538 electorswho are designated per State based on its representation in the Senate (two senators per State) and in the House of Representatives. Their distribution is based on the population of each State.

The candidate who wins the majority of votes in each State wins all of its electoral seats, even if the difference is one vote (the winner takes it all system). Exceptions are Nebraska and Maine where votes are distributed proportionally.

To secure the magic ticket to the White House one must have at least 270 electors. This means that a candidate can win the popular vote nationally, but if they don’t have a majority of the electors then they can be left out of the Oval Office. Just like it happened in 2016 with Hillary Clinton who received almost three million more votes than Donald Trump who won the Electoral College with 304 votes.

So far, if in the “safe” States if everything goes, as the polls show, the Democratic candidate and vice president of the country, Kamala Harris, seems to count 226 “certain” electoral votes with the Republican candidate and former president of the United States , Donald Trump counting “sure” 219. This means that the two presidential candidates will clash for at least 93 remaining electoral votes and the eye automatically turns to the States – Keys that will also unlock the winner of the contest.

OR Arizona gives 11 electoral votes. It borders Mexico and therefore immigration has become the focus of the debate. The issue of abortion is also a big issue – a criterion for the vote. Arizona has 7.39 million inhabitants, which is the same as Hong Kong. In this one out of four voters are Latinos and in the presidential elections in 2020 it went to the Democrats with a difference of 10,000 votes.

OR Georgia it gives 16 electors and measures a population equal to that of Cuba. All eyes are here after Biden’s unexpected victory in 2020 by 13,000 votes. According to analysts, Donald Trump must win in Georgia at all costs to return to the White House. On the contrary, for Kamala Harris, Georgia is not that important to become the next president of the United States. However, if he fails in other key states, Georgia will end up being crucial for the Democratic nomination.

OR Nevada it gives only 6 electoral votes and its population is comparable to that of the capital of Ukraine, Kyiv, i.e. about 3.1 million inhabitants. The Democrats won this one in 2020, but in this year’s election the signs in favor of the Republicans are increasing with the economy remaining the most tormenting issue for its voters.

OR North Carolina it gives 16 electors and has the same number of inhabitants as that of Honduras, i.e. 10.7 million. This is the only open-ended state that Donald Trump won in the 2020 presidential election, but with a margin of only 74,000 votes, which, in this year’s election, gives hope to the Democrats.

The Michigan gives 15 electors. It has approximately the same population as Greece, counting 10 million inhabitants. In 2016, he helped Trump in his run for the White House. In 2020, however, Joe Biden emerged as the winner in this State with a margin of 150,000 votes. This year, nothing and no one can betray which camp will win Michigan, which mainly judges the economy and immigration as important issues, while the fact that the majority of Arab-Americans live in this State, whose support does not go unnoticed to Democrats was tested last year because of the war in the Gaza Strip. Adopting a tougher rhetoric toward Israel, Kamala Harris is hoping for a win in Michigan.

H Pennsylvania gives 19 electors – the most of any non-Amphiropean State. As analysts note, it is very difficult for any candidate to take the White House without winning Pennsylvania. It is no coincidence that both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris as well as their vice presidential candidates have visited the State in question more than 50 times since the middle of last July.

In 2020, Pennsylvania ended up back in the hands of the Democrats by 82,000 votes over the Republicans, who had won it by a narrow margin in 2016, wresting it from the Democrats who had won it consecutively in the previous six presidential contests.

If Kamala Harris loses Pennsylvania, then she must win either North Carolina or Georgia – two states that have voted for the Democratic candidate three times in the last 40 years. Accordingly, if Donald Trump loses in Pennsylvania, he will have to win either Wisconsin or Michigan, which have voted for a Republican candidate once since the 1980s, eight years ago.

In Pennsylvania, the economy is a top issue, while it was the first of two assassination attempts against Donald Trump.

Finally, the Wisconsin it gives 10 electoral votes and in this State the Democrats won in 2020 by a margin of 21,000 votes. In 2016, Wisconsin also produced a winner giving Trump the lead. It is no coincidence that the Republican candidate chose Milwaukee for the Republican Party convention, while Kamala Harris chose the same spot on the map for her first campaign speech as the Democratic candidate.

This is the most lopsided contest in the history of American elections – more lopsided even than that of 2020 when even a possible shift of even 43,000 voters from Biden to Trump would be enough to re-elect the latter.