The 2024 US presidential campaign marked by upheaval and rancour reached its finale on Election Day – November 5 – as Americans will decide between former president Donald Trump or Vice President Kamala Harris.
Wisconsin, meanwhile, was once considered a reliably blue Rust Belt state. But it became a big-time battleground after former President Donald Trump eked out a victory there in 2016. Biden flipped the script with his own narrow victory there over Trump in 2020.
Wisconsin, which was No. 17 in the most recent Best States rankings from U.S. News, counts for 10 electoral votes – placing it roughly in the middle of the pack among all U.S. states but belying the crucial role it could play in the race for the White House.
Wisconsin’s importance in the 2024 race is underscored by Republicans choosing Milwaukee as the site of their nominating convention in July. And after Biden upended the race by withdrawing from consideration and backing Vice President Kamala Harris as his party’s new standard-bearer, Wisconsin was the site of Harris’ first top-of-the-ticket campaign rally.
Biden carried Wisconsin in 2020 – making Trump’s win there in 2016 an outlier over the past several decades. But the margin was under 1 percentage point in both elections.
U.S. News in November handicapped Wisconsin as one of seven of “toss-up” states in the 2024 presidential election, a fitting description for a state where four of the past six White House contests were decided by less than a point. The winner in the state also has gone on to win the White House in the past four presidential elections.
The state is on the radar of both campaigns, but perhaps more so for the Democrats as they seek to hold tight to the “blue wall” of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania that helped Biden triumph over Trump four years ago.
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