Where are the voters who could decide the presidential election?

By MAYA SWEEDLER

WASHINGTON (AP) — When you hear the term lodestar, you might think of states in the presidential election that always vote for the winner of the White House. The true meaning of a leading indicator is an indicator of a trend. And for that you have to think about counties.

In a closely contested presidential election, as many expect in 2024, results in some key counties in key battleground states will likely determine the outcome, just as they did in the last two general elections.

Here’s a look at those that could matter most on Election Day.

Start with the cities

Many of these states have large, democratic cities. These cities and their inner suburbs are a major source of Democratic votes in statewide elections. These areas consistently vote for Democratic candidates, meaning turnout in these places can have an outsized impact on the final statewide margin.

This year, look at Wayne County (Detroit) in Michigan, Mecklenburg County (Charlotte) in North Carolina and Fulton County (Atlanta) in Georgia.

Republican candidates tend to do well in the more rural areas of these states, meaning Democrat Kamala Harris will need to build big margins in those places to offset Republican Donald Trump’s advantage elsewhere.

Detroit, Charlotte and Atlanta are particularly large and have about twice the population of the next largest communities in each state. In 2020, voters in these three counties cast more than two-thirds of their votes for Democrat Joe Biden.

The suburbs are important

In Wisconsin, the major counties surrounding Milwaukee are Washington, Ozaukee, and Waukesha – colloquially known as “WOW” counties. These historically Republican communities are slowly moving left: Republican presidential candidates have won them in recent elections, but by increasingly narrow margins.

This is forcing Republican candidates to increase voter turnout in more rural areas of the state rather than relying on those districts to offset losses in the state’s urban Milwaukee and Dane districts, which are home to Madison, the state capital and the main campus of the University of California Wisconsin, located . It will be a good night for Trump if the high turnout and margins in “WOW” counties are more reminiscent of the early 2000s than 2020.

Philadelphia’s Bucks, Montgomery, Chester and Delaware counties are among the wealthiest in the state. They, too, are historic Republican strongholds, which have shifted to the left for decades. Democratic presidential candidates have elected three of them since the 1992 election; Chester switched between parties in the 2000s.

The huge counties

Arizona and Nevada are unique in that both states have a majority of the state’s population living in a single county. More than 60% of votes cast in Arizona in the 2020 presidential election came from Maricopa, which includes Phoenix, while more than two-thirds of Nevada’s votes came from Clark, home of Las Vegas.