You asked: Which swing states are most important in the 2024 election?

A polling station in Dunwoody, Ga., on Nov. 26, 2022. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Which are the two most important swing states? Do you see Pennsylvania and Michigan as being more crucial to win than Wisconsin? For example.

In conversations with campaign officials for Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, it is clear that there are three critical swing states: Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. If Harris wins all three of those, plus one electoral vote in Nebraska, and keeps the Democratic strongholds, she wins 270 electoral votes exactly. That pathway, officials believe, is Democrats’ best chance of winning.

That being said, if you are looking only at pure electoral value, Pennsylvania has the most electoral votes with 19, followed by Michigan with 15 and Wisconsin with 10.

But since President Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race, Democrats believe Harris has a better chance of winning some of the other battleground states that would give her an alternate path to 270 electoral votes. In particular, polls show Harris is more competitive than Biden in Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina.

Republicans also see those seven states — Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada — as the core battlegrounds. Trump campaign officials argue their task is easier because as long as they hold North Carolina they only need to win Georgia and Pennsylvania to surpass 270 electoral votes. “She’s still playing defense,” a senior Trump adviser told reporters in August.

The Trump campaign previously flirted with raids into bluer territory such as Virginia and Minnesota, but those ambitions faded as Harris replaced Biden and polls tightened. Donald Trump himself has publicly mused about winning New York and New Jersey, but his campaign is not seriously contesting those states.