Friday, November 1, 2024

Factbox-US counties Wall Street will be watching closely on election night

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By Pete Schroeder

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – With Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris locked in a dead heat in the race for the White House, political forecasters will be eyeing a clutch of counties across the country for clues on who has the edge once polls start to close on Tuesday evening.

Here is a list of bellwether counties Reuters compiled, based on research by UBS, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank, Beacon Policy Advisors in Washington and Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball with the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics.

The list, which is not exhaustive, includes the most pivotal counties in the seven battleground “swing” states that will determine the winner.

ARIZONA

Arizona’s Maricopa County, home to 4.5 million people — over half of the state’s population — is seen as one of the most pivotal battlegrounds across the United States, both for the presidency and the Senate.

Biden in 2020 was the first Democrat to win the county since President Harry Truman in 1948, according to Beacon, and a strong performance by Harris would bode extremely well for her in the swing state.

Polls there close at 9 p.m. ET (0100 GMT), but the state does not begin reporting results until one hour after all precincts have reported.

Election officials have warned it could take up to 13 days to tabulate all the ballots in Maricopa, according to local media reports. In 2020, the Associated Press and Fox News called the state for Biden hours after polls closed, but other outlets waited nine days to declare him the winner.

FLORIDA

With Trump holding a near double-digit lead over Harris in Florida polls, the Sunshine State is not a battleground. But politicos will be watching Miami-Dade County, the state’s most populous, which is also expected to report results relatively early after polls close there at 7 p.m. ET.

The county was solidly Democrat from the 2008 election cycle through to 2016, when Hillary Clinton won it by 30 points, but by 2020 Biden only had a seven-point edge.

As such, it’s seen as a critical county for Harris. Further erosion of support for the Vice President in the Miami area, particularly among Hispanic voters, could spell broader trouble for her, according to Beacon.

Goldman Sachs analysts noted that the U.S. dollar reacted strongly to that weaker Democratic Miami-Dade result in 2020, as investors raised their bets on a potential Trump win.

GEORGIA

Georgia’s DeKalb and Gwinnett counties are also seen as bellwethers for Democrats’ performance in the state. Biden built strong margins in the two urban counties, helping him narrowly win the swing state in 2020.

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