With less than two months before the presidential election, polls are tightening in swing states and attention is becoming more focused. Remember that the outcome of a presidential election is determined not by the total number of popular votes, but by the final tally of the Electoral College. It takes 270 Electoral College votes to win.
So which states are in the game? According to a Politico article published Tuesday titled “Battleground: These states will decide the 2020 elections.” 13 states could decide the outcome. Writers James Arkin, Scott Bland, Beatrice Jin, Andrew McGill, Steven Shepard and Allan James Vestal concluded that four states, with a combined 78 Electoral College votes, would likely go to President Donald Trump (Texas, 38; Georgia, 16; Iowa, 6; and Ohio, 18). Four states with a total of 65 electoral votes are tied (Florida, 29, North Carolina, 15, Arizona, 11, and Wisconsin, 10); and five states with a total of 56 Electoral College votes will likely go to Biden (Nevada, 6, Minnesota, 10, New Hampshire, 4, Pennsylvania, 20, and Michigan, 16).
Let’s dive deep into Florida. Not only is it a throwaway state, but it has also played a decisive role in past presidential elections. As in many states, the Democratic Party in Florida relies on enormous cities and densely populated counties to vote overwhelmingly Democratic and offset Republican voters in less populated areas.
But that strategy is faltering as Republicans choose not to cast votes in any part of the state. “We are focusing on every part of this state and not giving up any seat, otherwise it would be politically stupid,” Trump campaign leader in Florida, Susie Wiles, told Politico.
This week, an NBC News-Marist poll showed that Wiles’ strategy is working. The poll found Florida’s likely voters to be comparable between Trump and Biden (766 likely voters, poll conducted Aug. 31-Sept. 6, +/- 4.5 points). What’s fueling this tight competition is the influence Trump is making with voters in Miami-Dade County. Cuban-American Republicans are participating in local races, and YouTube star Alexander Otaola, who covers not only culture but also politics in his Spanish-language show, is a robust supporter of Trump. Otaola was an Obama voter who switched to Trump and brought a number of very vocal Cuban Americans with him.
This polling of Miami-Dade voters is more exacting than the Biden team would like. In 2016, Hillary Clinton led Miami-Dade by 30 points. This week, Bendixen & Amandi International released a poll that reflects Biden’s 17-point lead, with Trump outperforming Cuban voters by 38 points (68% to 30%) and losing among non-Cuban Latinos by 26 points (32% to 58%). ). %). This is truly great news for Trump and his supporters.
Otaola is one of many former Obama voters in Cuba who plan to vote for Trump. Why? According to Politico, Otaola said this is because Trump is “synonymous with prosperity and success. We are tired of politicians saying the right thing and doing the wrong thing. And we have turned into those who say the wrong things but do the right thing.”
If other Americans follow Otaola’s logic, Trump will win a landslide victory.
While many follow the endless politics of the campaign, Trump continues to deliver important political results. In foreign affairs, for example, the Trump administration recently announced full normalization of relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates; economic normalization between Kosovo and Serbia; Kosovo’s recognition of Israel; relocation of the Serbian embassy to Jerusalem. While the press glosses over these major achievements, it highlights what Cubans know from experience: that political structure matters. As Otaola said last spring, “we don’t want communism or socialism in the United States.” He also understands that actions speak louder than words.
For his leadership in foreign affairs, Trump was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Christian Tybring-Gjedde, a member of the Norwegian Parliament. “He has done more to try to bring peace between nations than most other Peace Prize nominees,” Tybring-Gjedde told Fox News. “In essence, Trump has broken a 39-year streak of American presidents who either started a war or dragged the United States into an international armed conflict,” he said in his nomination letter to the Norwegian Nobel Committee.
Many voters may decide this fall that while they may not like everything Trump says, they do like his policies and will vote for his policy first: act rather than talk.
