Donald Trump’s path to the White House relies on these five groups

With polls showing the election on a knife-edge, a small number of voters could hold the keys to the White House for Donald Trump or Kamala Harris.

For the Republican candidate, these are the five areas in the crucial swing states that he needs to win over - and the people who make up them.

1) Nevada and Arizona’s Hispanic corners

Arizona turned blue for the first time in two decades in 2020, but the Democrats can’t bank on the state.

The key area here is Maricopa County, home of the state’s capital Phoenix, which makes up well over half the state’s electorate.

It flipped to the Democrats for the first time since 1948 in 2020, but almost a million people still supported Donald Trump – roughly a third of all votes cast in the entire state.

Similar stories emerge in Clark County and Washoe County in Nevada, another battleground. Here the Democrats won in 2020, but with smaller margins than in 2016.

These counties are linked by a large, and growing, Hispanic community – as much as 32 per cent in the latest census.

Hispanic voters tend to lean Democrat. Representing a tenth of the country’s electorate, they gave Biden a comfortable majority of 61 per cent in 2020, according to Catalist.

But that same research also showed an eight percentage point swing towards Trump between 2016 and 2020 in this group.

On immigration, Trump leads by a margin of 42 per cent to 37 per cent amongst Hispanic voters. This matters in Arizona, where a third of all illegal migrants crossed into the USA last year, spilling into border towns like Tucson.

The proportion of Arizonans who consider immigration the top issue favour Trump by 89 per cent. Amongst the state’s Hispanics, the Democrats lead overall, but by just a seven point margin, according to one Politico poll.

2) Rural and black votes in Georgia and North Carolina

Trump lost Georgia to Biden by the smallest of margins in 2020 – just 0.23 per cent.

Rural votes account for a quarter of the population of Georgia, and Trump will need to build on his advantage with that demographic.

Trump dominated the nationwide rural vote in 2020 by 25 points, but he also needs to make further in-roads into the state.

Issues are on his side: on economic and immigration policy, rural voters are twice as likely to support Trump than Ms Harris, according to Siena.

Abortion, also one of their top three issues, is more evenly split with 49 per cent support Trump to Ms Harris’s 45 per cent.

Ms Harris is aware of the rural vote’s importance, embarking on a bus-tour of rural counties in August. The Democrats might not be able to win those counties, but can bring the margins down and help increase the overall vote total for the state.

Similar issues are in play in North Carolina. Trump held the state in 2020 but his lead over the Democrats was cut to just one point.

The two states are cornerstones of the Black Belt; southern US states with large African-American populations reaching as high as one in three residents in Georgia.

Traditionally overwhelmingly Democratic, Trump actually made inroads with black voters in 2020, increasing his estimated vote share from 8 per cent to 12 per cent.

At this election, Trump has lost ground with this group since Ms Harris took over from Mr Biden, but is still polling at 16 per cent, according to New York Times-Siena polling.

Translated to a black population of over a million, a small bump could make a big impact.

3) White Wisconsin

In 2016, Trump successfully flipped Wisconsin to the Republicans for the first time since 1992 with a margin of just 0.8 per cent.

Behind this success was a surge in support from the state’s white community who make up the bulk of the state. Some 68 of the state’s 72 counties are over three-quarters white. In 2020, Trump still won 56 of them, despite the state going back to Democrats.

Dane County was not one of these, which Biden won with a thumping 52 point lead. Biden won the State of Wisconsin by roughly 20,000 votes in 2020. In Dane County alone, more than six times that voted for Trump.

But as the fastest growing county in the state, this Democratic stronghold could spell trouble for Trump.

However, in Milwaukee County, increasing his vote share by around one point, as he did between 2016 and 2020, would help him get within a whisker of success in the state.

Trump has heavily criticised Milwaukee, once describing it as a “disgusting city” for high crime levels, and this could be a key way in with the state’s predominantly white population, even if crime rates are declining.

Four in five of Trump voters in the state saw it as the most important issue in 2020, whilst a University of Wisconsin poll from May saw all residents put gun violence as the second most important topic and overall crime the fourth.

Trump will need to maintain his lead with rural, white voters but make those in-roads with more urban, white communities.

4) Blue-collar Michigan

Similar to Wisconsin, Michigan was a shock loss to the Democrats in 2016 and even when it swung back to them in 2020, the margins were much slimmer than expected.

Rooted in its historic car industry, the state is a predominantly blue-collar community.

Trump did well with rank-and-file union types in 2016, with employment and retirement concerns vital to the group. Michigan in particular has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country.

In this election, inflation and the cost-of-living will undoubtedly be on their minds.

One area where this topic might have a noticeable effect on voters is Kent County, home to Grand Rapids, where a fifth of households earn between $25,000 and $50,000.

As the state’s largest county outside Detroit, Trump lost his majority here in 2016; only the seventh time a Republican had lost it in 36 elections. The swing was significant, with Trump losing almost 20,000 votes.

It will be the fifth of that community, on desperately strained wages, that Trump will need to pull back to win the state.

5) Less-educated Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania is the ultimate swing state. It has the highest number of electoral votes up for grabs and no Democratic candidate has won the White House without it since 1948.

Trump has always performed better with less-educated voters, but in Pennsylvania, the difference is most notable.

In 2020, 54 per cent of voters without college degrees backed Trump. This increased to 66 amongst white, non-graduate voters – an important group in the second whitest swing state after Wisconsin.

Trump held most counties with less educated voters in 2020, but crucially he lost the counties of Erie and Northampton. These are small counties with small populations, but have been bellwether counties in recent elections.

To appeal to the average Pennsylvanian, a candidate should appeal to the average Eerian or Northamptonian.

With around 30 per cent college graduates between them, they are towards the middle in terms of education. This will mean addressing the “diploma divide” is vital.

Ms Harris is aware of this, pitching plans to remove “unnecessary degree requirements” for federal jobs – perhaps enough to keep a small proportion from Trump.