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A Tale of Two Counties
Berrien County, Michigan and Bucks County, Pennsylvania, are bellwether counties for winning the 2024 Election. Candidate Harris needs to win both.
Seven states and little more than 500 counties (1) will determine the course of the next four years, seminal years for a divided America.
The story for me is personal: my wife and I lived and owned a business in Berrien County, Michigan for twelve years. My mother’s family hails from Bucks County, Pennsylvania, though most of my relatives have moved away. Recently, voters in one county — Berrien — have elected Republicans, notably Donald Trump for President in 2016 and 2020. In Pennsylvania, Trump carried the state by a slim margin in 2016; in 2020, Biden. Will voters in Berrien County vote for Trump a third time? In Pennsylvania, will Harris be able to repeat Biden’s slim 2020 margin of 1.17%?
For Kamela Harris to carry these states requires shifting the vote away from party affiliation to voting for Harris. Consider yourself in these voters’ shoes.
Once upon a time, Bucks County and Berrien County were counties in predominantly blue states. Now they are counties in red states. Look at Michigan in the 2020 election — a sea of red except for Detroit, and a sprinkling of blue with a rather large blue county in the UP. Those blue sprinkles are where college campuses are located — big…