ATLANTA – The most turbulent presidential campaign in generations is now set to play out as a 90-day race on two fronts: the Rust Belt and the Sun Belt.
With your choice of a Midwest Governor As his running mate, Vice President Kamala Harris has pushed to bolster the “Blue Wall” states — Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania — that Democrats need to win to keep the White House. Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, had already signaled that she would also run in Sun Belt states that appeared increasingly out of President Joe Biden’s reach.
Harris, the first woman of color and South Asian descent to head a major party ticket, and former president donald trumpthe Republican candidate, will also be in the Sun Belt competition to win Georgia, Arizona, Nevada and North Carolina, an electoral map that has expanded since Biden’s decision to withdraw from the race.
Its rise and the enthusiasm it generated across racial and generational lines forced mapmakers in both parties to redraw campaign battle lines, Republicans and Democrats agree. Biden’s struggles — especially among younger voters and nonwhite voters in the Sun Belt — required him to win all three Blue Wall states and hold off Trump in Democratic-leaning Minnesota to have a chance at winning the majority in the Electoral College.
“Black women candidates have a unique ability to build multiracial coalitions,” said Democratic campaign strategist Lauren Groh-Wargo, who managed Stacey Abrams’ two campaigns for Georgia governor. “This is the opportunity that Kamala presents especially in the South and Sun Belt, which have the most racially and ethnically diverse battleground states.”
Chuck Coughlin, a longtime Republican consultant in Arizona, said Biden’s switch to Harris was a shock in his state and beyond: “Once he walked away, it was like you released a torrent of energy.”
The vice president, a California native who Republicans criticize as a “San Francisco liberal,” revealed the governor of Minnesota on Tuesday. Tim Walz as his running mate. A 60-year Army National Guard veteran, public school teacher and former high school football coach who once represented a wide swath of rural and small-town Minnesota in Congress, Walz adds a distinct Rust Belt stamp to Democratic ticket.
“Tim Walz could play well in the parts of Pennsylvania and other Rust Belt states where Joe Biden was stronger than Democrats sometimes are,” said Mike Mikus, a veteran of Democratic campaigns who lives in Pittsburgh. “And Kamala Harris is very well positioned for the suburbs and the cities.”
The Trump campaign’s immediate reaction suggests they won’t alter the arguments they made before Harris hired Walz.
“It’s no surprise that San Francisco liberal Kamala Harris wants West Coast hopeful Tim Walz as her running mate. Walz spent his administration trying to reshape Minnesota in the image of the Golden State,” said Karoline Leavitt, a spokeswoman for the former president.
Trump narrowly won the Blue Wall states in his 2016 race against Hillary Clinton, only to lose them four years later to Biden, who also added Georgia and Arizona to his winning coalition.
After Biden disastrous debate performance By June, the 81-year-old’s options had been narrowed and Trump was ready to capitalize across the electoral map. The former president emerged even stronger when he survived a assassination attempt two days before the Republican National Convention. Trump selected Ohio Senator JD Vanceanother conservative populist, like his running mate in an effort to suppress working-class voters.
It was a “choice of movement” made based on trust, Trump ally and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said at the time. Republicans came out of their convention in Milwaukee talking not just about an Electoral College victory in the presidential race, but also about a landslide victory that would give rise to majorities in the House and Senate and dominance of statehouses across the country. And in Vance, Gingrich said, Trump wasn’t simply adding a running mate, he was anointing a successor.
So Biden dropped out and supported Harrisand in a matter of days she had raised US$200 millionattracted tens of thousands of new volunteers and secured the commitment of enough Democratic delegates to make her the eventual nominee — the position she officially won on Monday night.
While a national campaign focuses on issues that resonate with voters across state and regional borders, there are fundamental differences on the two fronts of the presidential campaign.
Upper Midwestern states and Pennsylvania generally have slightly older and whiter electorates, and a higher percentage of the population is native to the states where they still reside. For example: The Census Bureau measured the U.S. population to be 58.4% non-Hispanic white in 2023, while Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin exceeded 73%. Arizona was 53.4%, while Georgia was 49.6%.
Meanwhile, Arizona is just slightly above the nation’s median age of 38.9, and Georgia’s median is more than a year younger. All three Blue Wall states have medians above 40, highlighting the strength of younger voters in closely divided Sun Belt states.
Reflecting the industrial history of the Rust Belt, unions, especially private sector unions, are stronger than in the Southeast and Southwest of the Sun Belt – with the notable exception of Las Vegas, where unions in the casino and of tourism are important political forces.
Sun Belt states have been growing faster than the Great Lakes region for decades and, on average, have younger electorates. The business boom and retirement options have drawn newcomers to metropolitan areas such as Phoenix, Las Vegas, Atlanta, Charlotte and the “Research Triangle” comprising Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill, North Carolina. They also have larger Hispanic populations.
North Carolina and Georgia have large black populations, which, like Hispanic populations in the Southwest, include voters with generational ties to the region and newcomers.
The largest metropolitan areas in Georgia and North Carolina also have rapidly growing Asian American populations.
The deeply rooted segments of nonwhite populations also mean that Sun Belt states have a more racially and ethnically diverse rural and small-town population. This is different from Rust Belt states, where most of the nonwhite population is concentrated in metropolitan areas.
Harris’s deliberations over a running mate seemed to reflect a keen awareness of the two major fronts on the battlefield map. Its other finalists included Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, who won a landslide victory in 2022 with especially strong support from the Philadelphia suburbs, and Arizona Senator Mark Kelly, a Democrat who has at times been critical of the way the Biden administration deals with border and immigration policy. .
But Mikus, the Pennsylvania Democrat, said Harris has finally found the right choice for a ticket that reflects the breadth of her ideal coalition.
“The ticket as a whole is above brand and vibrancy,” he said. “They have a good combination there.”
But for Groh-Wargo, it all starts with the presidential candidate and, in this case, what Harris wants to say in states that Biden would have had a hard time winning.
“People talk a lot about the challenges that candidates of color and women candidates face,” Groh-Wargo said, “but I don’t think we talk enough about the opportunities.”
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Associated Press reporter Jonathan J. Cooper contributed from Washington.
