President Joe Biden’s seemingly unassailable “blue wall” appears to be crumbling in the wake of former President Donald Trump’s greatest political comeback in history.
The “blue wall” represents three battleground states: Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Biden must win these states to prevent Trump from winning reelection.
The states are imperative for Biden due to Trump’s surge in the sunbelt states of Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, and North Carolina. In those four states, Trump leads Biden between three and six points in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, and North Carolina, FiveThirtyEight’s polling averages show.
“There’s a clear divide between the Blue Wall states, where the polling is close, and the Sun Belt states, where it isn’t,” wrote Steven Shepard, Politico‘s senior campaign and elections editor and chief polling analyst.
For the first time in 2024, Trump held a narrow lead in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan, Tuesday’s Emerson poll showed. Previous swing state polling showed Trump leading in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, with only Michigan leaning toward Biden.
Seven states — Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, and North Carolina — will decide the president, longtime Democrat adviser Doug Sosnik wrote in the New York Times. If Trump wins one or more of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, Biden’s chances of obtaining 270 electoral votes become slim.
US President Donald Trump holds a campaign rally at HoverTech International in Allentown, Pennsylvania, October 26, 2020 (SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images).
In essence, if Biden wins all blue wall states, he would win reelection without winning any of the Sun Belt states. “But if he loses all four competitive Sun Belt states, Biden can’t afford to drop any of the Blue Wall states,” Shepard wrote Wednesday. “And given the size of Michigan (15 electoral votes) and Pennsylvania (19 electoral votes), it’s difficult for Biden to cobble together any Electoral College majority without them, even if he manages to hold Arizona or Nevada.”
Sosnik depicted several reasons why be believes Biden faces a tougher path to reelection than Trump:
- Michigan is not a shoo-in for Biden, as it was in previous elections for Democrats.
- The intersectional coalition (young voters, black voters, Hispanic voters) appears to be abandoning Biden, who needs their support in Arizona, Nevada, and Georgia.
“Mr. Biden’s declining popularity in the Sun Belt states is the main reason Mr. Trump has an edge right now. He is especially struggling with young and nonwhite voters there,” Sosnik wrote in the Times:
According to 2020 exit polls, Mr. Biden won 65 percent of Latino voters, who comprised roughly a fifth of voters in Arizona and Nevada. And Mr. Biden won 87 percent of Black voters, who made up 29 percent of the Georgia vote and 23 percent of the North Carolina vote. He also won 60 percent of voters aged 18 to 29. Now look at this year: A New York Times/Siena College poll released last weekend showed support for Mr. Biden had dropped 18 points with Black voters, 15 points with Latinos and 14 points with younger voters nationally.
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If Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump remain ahead in the states where they are currently running strongest, the outcome of the election could come down to who wins Michigan and the two Sun Belt states where abortion will very likely be on the ballot, Arizona and Nevada.
