What Will Decide The US Election and Why It’s So Close

On Monday night, she held her final rally in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, at the top of the 72 steps leading to the city’s Museum of Art, which Sylvester Stallone’s fictional boxer Rocky climbed in the film of the same name – before narrowly losing to his opponent, Apollo Creed.

Trump’s “red wall” sits along the eastern edge of the US. It is less talked about but equally important to his electoral chances. It starts in Pennsylvania but stretches south to North Carolina and Georgia. If he carries these states, he will win by two electoral votes, no matter how the other battlegrounds vote.

That explains why he’s held five events in North Carolina in just in the last week.

The overlapping point on each of these walls, of course, is Pennsylvania – the biggest battleground electoral prize. Its nickname, the Keystone State, has never been more appropriate.

Sometimes lost in all this electoral map strategising and gameplay is the historic significance of this presidential election.

Harris and Trump represent two very different views of the US – on immigration, trade, cultural issues and foreign policy.

The president for the next four years will be able to shape American government – including the federal courts – in a way that could have an impact for generations.

The US political landscape has been changing dramatically over the past four years, reflecting shifts in the demographic make-ups of both parties.

The Republican Party of a decade ago looked very different to the populist one that Trump now leads, which has far more appeal to blue-collar and low-income voters.

The Democratic Party’s base still rests on young voters and people of colour, but it now relies more on the wealthy and college educated.

Tuesday’s results may offer additional evidence of how these tectonic shifts in American politics, only partially realised over the past eight years, are reshaping the US political map.

And those shifts could give one side or the other an advantage in future races.

It wasn’t too long ago – in the 1970s and 1980s – that Republicans were viewed as having a unassailable lock on the presidency because they consistently won a majority in enough states to prevail in the electoral college.

This election may be a 50-50 contest, but that doesn’t mean this is the new normal in American presidential politics.