Donald Trump has won a historic victory in the US presidential election. He is the first president since World War 2 to return to power after a gap of 4 years. After leading the trend early, Trump said he was going to make history by winning all of America's swing states.
Trump has won 5 of 7 swing states in this election and has strong leads in the remaining 2 states (Nevada and Arizona).
Despite performing well in all swing states, Trump did not win a single blue state. Swing states are states where the difference in votes between two candidates is very small and could swing in either direction. Blue states are states where Kamala Harris's Democratic Party has influence.
Let's understand, based on the historical data, why Trump could not win a single blue state?
1. Impact of Illegal Immigrants
Of the 20 states won by Kamala Harris, 4 states have the highest illegal immigrant populations. Trump only managed to win 2 of the 6 states with the highest population of illegal immigrants.
Trump has a strong stance against illegal immigrants, so it is believed that the immigrant population is Kamala Harris' main vote bank. Kamala has won all the states where illegal immigrants grew the most when she was vice president.
The number of illegal immigrants declined during Trump's tenure. On the other hand, their population has increased during Joe Biden's presidency.
According to data from Pew Research, in 2016, when Trump first became president, the total number of illegal immigrants in the United States was about 1.17 million. By the time Trump left office in 2021, it had dropped marginally to 1 crore.
During Biden's tenure, the illegal immigrant population grew from 1 crore to nearly 2 crore. California is the only state where the number of illegal immigrants has not increased. However, California is still the state with the highest number of illegal immigrants.
According to Pew Research, two of the biggest reasons why the number of people coming to the US illegally has not increased during Trump's tenure –
Building a wall on the Mexico border and the return of other Mexican immigrants. In fact, Mexico has the largest population of illegal immigrants in the United States. In 2022 these immigrants accounted for 37% of the total population. India ranks third in terms of illegal immigrants in America. There are a total of 7 lakh 25 thousand immigrants of Indian origin in America.
2. Mandatory Voter ID
All of the 20 states that Kamala Harris won are states that do not require a photo-water ID to vote. Here you can vote without Photo Voter ID. On the other hand, Trump has won 9 such states.
Indeed, in America the electoral system and its rules fall under the states. Hence the rules related to elections are different in different states. Only 9 of the 50 US states require photo voter ID to vote. Kamala did not win in any of these.
Image Credit: (Divya-Bhaskar): Images/graphics belong to (Divya-Bhaskar).
