US Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign team is concerned about some states that make up the so-called Blue Wall, an area of the country with a long history of Democratic preferences. However, things could be different in the upcoming presidential elections on November 5, especially as Harris must contend with voter perception of the current state of the economy.
Less than two weeks before the next US presidential election, the team of the Democratic candidate fears that states such as Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, the so-called Blue Wall, will support the Republican candidate Donald Trump this year, which could make the race even closer, according to people close to the Democratic vice president and who were consulted by NBC News.
These three states have paved the way for the two most recent Democratic presidents (Joe Biden and Barack Obama) to win the White House, but this time, at least two of them are in doubt only days before the election. Harris’s campaign aides, who asked to remain anonymous, told NBC News that there is a chance that Wisconsin and Michigan could break through the Democratic “wall” and be swept away by Trump.
“There has been a thought that maybe Michigan or Wisconsin will fall off,” said a senior Harris campaign official, who stressed that the bigger concern is over Michigan.
Members of the vice president’s team calculate that losing Wisconsin or Michigan would mean that even if Harris secures Pennsylvania, she would fall short of the 270 electoral votes needed to win the election. Although Harris’s team has some concerns about at least three states, NBC News adds, they have not yet talked about a possible loss to Donald Trump, but they do perceive a closer competition than a few weeks ago.
The NBC cited Democratic pollster Matt Baretto as saying:
“Right now, Harris has an advantage in all three states — not a huge advantage — we know the election is going to be close. It’s going to be 1 or 2 percent in any of these states.”
Harris is evidently worried about losing the Blue Wall, which is why she visited Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin on October 21, which have traditionally voted for the party, instead of visiting other key swing states. According to FiveThirtyEight’s daily election poll tracker, as of October 21, in the key states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Nevada — which have a total of 51 votes in the 538-strong Electoral College — the two candidates are effectively tied, with less than half a percent separating them.
At the same time, the Kamala Harris campaign has been dealt another blow after it was revealed that 52% of adults believe that they and their families are currently in a worse financial situation than before Joe Biden assumed the presidency.
Gallup’s research data confirm that this is the highest number of citizens dissatisfied with the economy since 1992. That year, 46% of the electorate disapproved of then-President George Bush’s economic management, partly explaining why the Republican failed in his re-election bid and his opponent, the governor of Arkansas and Democratic standard-bearer, Bill Clinton, comfortably won.
Gallup’s survey of US citizens’ opinions on the country’s economic situation found that only 39% of respondents said they were better off than four years ago, and 8% said they were about the same as in 2020. In this sense, the survey confirms that a majority of Americans disapprove of Biden’s economic management, whom they blame for the rising cost of living and the increase in the price of goods and services.
This explains why the economy appears in all polls as the main concern of voters in this election cycle, ahead of other issues such as rising crime, reproductive rights and illegal immigration.
Gallup also found that 46% of Americans describe their current economic conditions as “poor” and 29% as “only fair,” compared to 25% who say their conditions are “excellent” or “good.”
Supporting the public’s discouraging view of the country’s direction, 62% of respondents believe the economy is “getting worse,” while 32% said it is “getting better.” Gallup concludes that this scenario will weigh heavily on voters’ minds when choosing the new president.
“As inflation persists and economic concerns dominate voters’ minds, the upcoming election may hinge on which candidate can best address these pressing issues,” wrote Mary Claire Evans, a researcher at Gallup.
While all polls show a virtual tie between the two candidates, in recent weeks, Donald Trump has shown slight growth in several main battleground states. This is largely due to voters’ belief that the tycoon would be better at managing the economy than Harris and that his four years as president were more prosperous than the current Biden-Harris term. It might be this very factor that will allow Trump to knock down the so-called Blue Wall.
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Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
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