IF I knew that answer with absolute certainty, I would place heavy wagers in Las Vegas and prepare for a comfortable retirement. IF this election cycle has taught us anything, change comes fast, and anything can happen. There may be at least 1-2 more shoes to drop.
I do believe and will say many times between now and November 5, that VP Kamala Harris doesn't really have a path to the White House that does not include victory in Pennsylvania. Georgia occupies a similar place of importance for the Donald Trump victory map.
Based on shifts in population in the 2020 Census, with several blue states ceding population to red, IF former President Trump were to carry the exact same map he did in the race against Joe Biden in 2020, he would have 235 Electoral Votes. This includes holding North Carolina, where the race is tightening due to a scandal with the GOP nominee for Governor. Trump would then only need to flip Georgia (16 Electoral Votes) and Pennsylvania (19) to compile 270 Electoral College votes, beating VP Harris who would then have 268, and win a return to the White House.
As a largely Libertarian, I support a strong national defense, infrastructure and local public safety. I will add that I also believe in and support quality public schools. Government should stay out of our personal lives, and that your rights end where mine begin, and vice-versa. As a result, I have long been pro-choice as it relates to women and their reproductive rights. I have also believed for decades if instead of regulating the uterus or female reproductive organs, the laws aimed at restricting abortion instead restricted the male reproductive organs, or mandated condom usage or vasectomy by law, etc... that debate might last for about six months.
However, though I believe that much of the GOP has fallen off a cliff to the far right on this issue and sincere concerns for the Right to Life, we are where we are on this issue, in a post-Roe v. Wade, return to the state's regulation era for abortions and related medical procedures. And there are about 10 percent of the voting age population who believe Reproductive and Abortion Rights to be their Number #1 issue.
I am going to assume for the sake of this column, and polling data, that the bulk of voters placing that issue at the top, on either side, have long since chosen their candidate. In national and most battleground state polling, undecided voters are in low single digits, whereas in most prior Presidential cycles and this calendar, we would still be ahead of the debates and the undecided would be around 12-15 percent. This base election contest is down to 6-7 percent of undecided voters.
In typical Presidential election years, suburban women are among the last to decide, and often wait on the debates to make their ballot choice. There is no monolithic voting block on this single issue, but suburban women, by majority tend to support legal abortion with some limitations, at least during the first trimester, and with exceptions for rape, incest and severe threat to the health or life of the mother. This was the old Ronald Reagan GOP standard for legal abortions. I have to slip this in here, but the court that decided Roe v. Wade (1973- 7-2), was a majority GOP appointed court, with the two dissenters being one very conservative and one very liberal member of that court.
Fulton County, Georgia had just over 1-million ballots cast in the 2020 contest. Gwinnett, Cobb and DeKalb Counties were the next three in numbers of ballots cast. Women are roughly 55 percent of the voting age population. Ultimately, this national choice may well come down to the importance of Choice among suburban women in metro Atlanta, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, if the polls remain as close as they are today, with Trump leading narrowly in both states, but within the margin of error. With 6-7 percent undecided, if Harris wins 60 percent of those late breaking votes, on that single issue, which she speaks to very effectively, then analysts and voters can accurately say in the final analysis that the issue of Choice drove the decision in the battleground states, and thus the next occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
