What do we see from the latest poll results in 7 key US swing states?

In the United States, the candidate who wins the most popular votes is not guaranteed to win the White House. Just look at the lesson of 2016, when Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton won nearly 2.9 million more votes than Donald Trump but still lost. The strategy here is to win more votes in the “right” states.

It is clear that in election campaigns, candidates bet on winning votes in key swing states, in addition to states that are traditionally loyal to their party.

So how do you know exactly which states will serve as battleground states this November?

Typically, strategists will look at historical maps. Some demographic groups tend to vote Democratic or Republican, while some states are split 50/50 between Democratic and Republican leaning groups.

However, the demographics of these states can change over time. Political preferences within each demographic group can also change. As a result, a state that was once considered a swing state may shift to being either a solid “blue” state or a solid “red” state.

Ohio is a prime example. From 1900 to 2012, the state correctly picked the winning presidential candidate 93% of the time. But as working-class white voters increasingly moved toward the Republican Party, so did Ohio. In 2020, Trump won the state by 8 points despite Joe Biden winning that year.

Missouri and Florida appear to be following a similar trend, while New Mexico, Colorado and Virginia have unexpectedly shifted their support to the Democrats.

So to figure out this year's battleground states, strategists need to consult the latest polls.

With national polls, confidence in the results tends to be higher than with state polls. However, strategists can still get a broad view by averaging the most reliable state polls and combining them with a statistical model.

Data analyst Nate Silver, formerly of the New York Times and FiveThirtyEight, recently released a ranking that Yahoo News calls the most comprehensive of the 2024 battleground states. According to the poll results, of the seven swing states, candidate Trump has an advantage in three states, including Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina: while Vice President Kamala Harris has an advantage in the remaining four states: Pennsylvania, Nevada, Wisconsin and Michigan.

The seven states mentioned above were also the seven states with the closest voting rates in the 2020 election.

Who would win if the election were held today?

National polls now show Ms Harris leading her rival Mr Trump by an average of about 2 to 3 percentage points.

In 2020, President Biden defeated Mr. Trump by a margin of 306-232 electoral votes. If the final results in 2024 match Silver’s forecast, with Arizona and Georgia leaning toward Mr. Trump; North Carolina remaining red; Wisconsin, Michigan, Nevada, and Pennsylvania remaining blue, Ms. Harris would win with 279 electoral votes.

But all of this is speculation. In general, demographics and voter distribution determine much of the final outcome of each state. For example, college-educated whites in Pennsylvania vote very differently than college-educated whites in Arizona. The question is how many of them live and vote in each state.

When the margin is not that large, like in 2020, local factors can make a difference.

In battleground states with key Senate and gubernatorial elections, including Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and North Carolina, the results of these state elections could influence who votes for president.

Or battleground states have their own unique characteristics, like Michigan. Home to the largest Arab-American population in the country, Michigan could be a wild card if opposition to the Biden-Harris administration’s Gaza war policy disrupts the state’s usual Democratic voting patterns.