US election result could come down to swing voters in seven battleground states

Maurice Combs has no doubts about how he'll vote. "Trump is an idiot," he says. The master barber says he has friends in jail for far less than what the former president has done. "He's been given too many passes."

Once a "dyed in the wool Democrat", Christine Cloud is now estranged from the party and can't stand the "vapidness of Kamala Harris". Rising living costs forced the retiree to make a tough decision this year, and she's angry about it.

Deciding how to vote is much harder for Mohammad Qazzaz. The coffee shop owner campaigned for Joe Biden in 2020, and now feels betrayed — but he sees Trump as a "narcissist and a tyrant", whose poor handling of the COVID crisis almost killed him.

Voters in just seven swing states look set to decide who becomes the next US president. This is a snapshot of what they're thinking ahead of the November 5 election.

Arizona

Cristina Junge won't hear a bad word about Donald Trump. "He's not perfect," she said when the ABC met her in October at her retirement village outside Phoenix. "But he is the man that we need at this moment." 

The 80-year-old moved to the US from Colombia in the 1960s — "legally, of course" — but she's angry about the number of people coming across the Mexican border without authorisation.

Arizona's position bordering Mexico means immigration policy is in sharp focus here. Trump has been warning of a migrant "invasion" and promising the largest mass deportation program in the country's history. He's also promoted unfounded claims that Haitian migrants have eaten Ohio residents' pets, and accused them of bringing crime waves to other small communities. Kamala Harris has condemned the "dangerous" rhetoric, but she's also toughened her stance on the border, with polls suggesting most voters believe Trump would do a better job of managing it.

Democrats are banking that another issue — abortion —will help to motivate support on their side. Arizona is one of the states where citizens will vote on abortion rights on election day. And Harris — who has made the issue central to her campaign — hopes that will boost turnout for her in a state that could prove critical.

Republicans have long dominated presidential elections in Arizona. In 2020, Joe Biden was just the second Democrat to win the state in more than 70 years. Latino Americans could represent up to one in four Arizona voters this time around. It's a demographic that has historically leaned towards Democrats. But Cristina — who campaigns with the Latino Americans for Trump group — believes that's changing. "I think that Latinos, we are very much of what Trump is. He believes in the family, number one," she says. "So [I] believe in God, in the family, in freedom and in my country."

Georgia

Georgia is the state where Donald Trump has been charged over alleged election interference, and Atlanta master barber Maurice Combs is just fine with that. "He's on tape trying to fix an election," he said. "I've got friends in jail for less, and I think he's been given too many passes." The 51-year-old thinks if Barack Obama was accused of the same crime, "he'd probably still be in jail".

Maurice has been voting for Democratic candidates as long as he can remember, and when we first met him in early September, he said this year would be no different: he'd be backing Kamala Harris, even if it annoyed him that politicians only seemed to show up around election time.

Georgia has tended to vote Republican in presidential elections, but Joe Biden flipped the "peach state" in 2020. Trump appeared unwilling to accept defeat, famously pressuring local Republican officials to "find" more votes. The actions of a Republican-dominated election board recently put election integrity back in the spotlight. The board pushed through new rules empowering local officials to carry out inquiries into vote counts and conduct hand counts. In October, a judge deemed those rules illegal, and Republicans appealed.

One in three Georgians are African American, and if Trump can win over just a small number of them, he could win the state. He's been making overtures to Black men in particular, saying they relate to his mugshot, which was taken in the state last year. "I don't know what Black men he's talking about," said Maurice. "It's like a slap to the face, because he's privileged." When we checked in with Maurice again this week, he said it'd mean a lot to him if Harris won. "It'd be a double whammy — a Black woman, a mixed Black woman, as the most powerful person in the world," he said. "[That would mean] that opportunities are open, not just for me, but for everyone."

Michigan

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Mohammad Qazzaz took a campaign phone call from Joe Biden during his run for president. The 40-year-old café owner from Dearborn, south-west of Detroit, talked to him for more than 20 minutes. "He assured me, when he found out I'm a Palestinian, that we're gonna' fix the Palestinian issue." Then came October 7 and the war in Gaza and now Mohammad has lost all faith in Biden. "It became worse under him," he said.

He gave Biden's successor, Kamala Harris, "a slim chance" of doing something to end what he considers the genocide in Gaza, but "she didn't do nothing". He's among voters in America's first Arab-majority city who say they're considering voting for Green Party candidate Jill Stein. "Or I might write in 'free Palestine'."

Michigan is part of what's known as the "blue wall", a group of states that consistently voted for the Democratic candidate from 1992 until 2012. In 2016, Donald Trump won several blue wall states, including Michigan, where he defeated Hillary Clinton by just 11,000 votes. Biden won it back for the Democrats in 2020 by a margin of 154,000 votes. The Great Lakes state is now considered a key battleground.

Mohammad was among more than 100,000 people who voted "uncommitted" in Michigan's primary election to choose a Democratic candidate for president. It was essentially a "none of the above" protest vote. At the time, he told the ABC: "We saved America from Trump. Now we need to save Palestine from Joe Biden." 

If significant numbers of Arab-Americans and progressive Democrats lodge a protest vote by backing a third-party candidate it could boost Trump's chances. Mohammad says he takes that into account, even if he "can't stand" the former president. "We don't care if Trump wins at this point. When it comes to Palestine, it's a red line."

Nevada

When we met Christine Cloud in the middle of the year, she was really feeling America's cost-of-living pressures. Aged 63, she'd been forced to move back in with her father because the rent on her Las Vegas apartment had been hiked up. "Everything's up," she said at the time. "Gas prices are crazy, food's gone way up."

Nevada has diverse demographics, with large Latino, Asian and African American communities. A wide range of issues are at play, but a lot of voters say the economy is top of the list. The state's been hit by particularly high inflation and has one of the highest unemployment rates in the US. That's made it a target for Republicans, who are aiming to win Nevada's presidential contest for the first time in 20 years. Donald Trump used a visit to the state to announce he'd remove taxes on tips, which many service workers in Las Vegas and elsewhere rely on. Kamala Harris has since promised she'd do the same.

Christine, one of many Californian transplants in Nevada, says she was once a "dyed-in-the-wool Democrat". She "had enough of being a liberal" in 2020, after protests and riots in American cities sparked by the police murder of George Floyd. She also said she liked the fact Trump was a businessman rather than a politician. "He was not part of the government," she said. "He was an outsider. I liked what he had done for the country. I liked his policies."

When we first spoke to Christine in June, she had reservations about Trump, who she described as "scary", but she rated him as better than Joe Biden. Now, she's no more impressed with Harris, nor how she came to be the nominee. "How easily they just pitched [Biden] to the side and put in someone who didn't have any votes … that didn't seem very democratic."

North Carolina

Jaxon Fisher has always leaned towards the Republican side of politics for a simple reason. "It favours my pockets," he told us when we met him a couple of weeks ago at the North Carolina State Fair. Now, as a young dad, that matters more than ever. "I make decent money, but it feels like I'm broke all the time," the 28-year-old said. 

His vote for Donald Trump doesn't mean he thinks the former president is a perfect leader, though. "I do agree he is rude at times," he said. "He should watch the way he says some things. But at the end of the day, you gotta put your feelings to the side."

North Carolina hasn't been held by a Democrat since Barack Obama became president in 2008. As the only key swing state that was won by Trump in 2020, it presents a pick-up opportunity for Kamala Harris. The state's rural areas are solidly Republican "red" and will likely come out in force for Trump. But there are strong pockets of Democrat "blue" in the larger cities, particularly around the booming "Research Triangle". The area contains three major universities, thousands of tech companies and the largest research park in the US.

Jaxon grew up in the "Triangle", in North Carolina's capital, Raleigh. He said many young men like him supported Trump because they were worried about the future. "I'm worried about her future," he added, referring to his baby daughter. "Now, all I think about is when I'm not here one day," he said. "If it's only getting worse, it's a snowball effect."

Pennsylvania

America's seemingly eternal debate over gun violence is particularly personal for Amanda Parezo. Three years ago, she'd just finished a game of kickball in a Philadelphia park when she suddenly heard gunshots. "Within that single second of hearing the shot fired, I felt a sting in my right side of my body, and immediately I fell off of the bench that I was sitting on," remembers Amanda, an occupational therapist. "I watched my friends fall to the ground trying to duck for cover, and other friends coming to administer first aid … in that instant, I knew I had a very severe spinal cord injury."

Kamala Harris supports a ban on assault weapons, a move Joe Biden repeatedly called for but was unable to get through Congress. "Hearing about school shooting after school shooting, I don't agree with any of the gun policies that we have in place right now," Amanda said. "I feel that with Kamala, they will be much stricter."

Amanda's home state of Pennsylvania is particularly important to the election result for one very big reason: with the fifth highest population in the country, it carries 19 electoral college votes — the most of any of the swing states. In 2016, Donald Trump ended decades of Democratic victories in Pennsylvania, partly by attracting support from white, working-class voters in rural areas. Joe Biden, who was born in Pennsylvania, flipped it four years later. Amanda acknowledges she lives in a "blue Democrat bubble" in Philadelphia, the state's largest city. But Trump has more support outside the big urban areas, and the result could be incredibly close. "Every election, that's how it goes with Pennsylvania," said Amanda, a registered Democrat. "I'm always on the edge of my seat."

Amanda has experienced a range of emotions this election year. Early on, she was anxious about Biden's prospects, and had concerns about his age and capacity to do the job. After his debate against Trump in June, she was even more worried. "I think scared is the best word to describe it, because it felt like he didn't really stand much of a chance," Amanda said. She remains nervous. "Our country is so divided."

Wisconsin

Keaira Bonner was chuffed when the Democrats made the switch from Joe Biden to Kamala Harris. "It was the right move, the right time for America," the mental health worker told us back in August, soon after Harris became the nominee. "I always vote, because I think that my voice matters," the 34-year-old said. She had been leaning towards voting for Biden, but she was "not the happiest" about it. "I felt more conflicted, but I think with the switch to Harris, it was just like — now I know exactly what I'm doing, I'm excited about it, and I'm definitely going to show up at the polls."

In every presidential election since 1992, Wisconsin voted for the Democratic candidate — until Donald Trump arrived on the scene. The Midwestern state fell to Trump in 2016, by a margin of 0.8 per cent. Biden wrested it back in 2020, and it became the "tipping point" state that gave him the White House. But the result was much closer than polls predicted, with just 20,000 votes in it.

Demographically, Wisconsin is the whitest of the swing states. Some polls suggest non-white Wisconsinites, who have historically favoured Democratic candidates, are drifting towards Trump. When we met Keaira with her daughter at a community garden in Milwaukee, there was no risk of that. "I have some strong feelings in relation to Trump," she said, pointing to his previous remarks about immigrants "taking Black jobs". "I am a Black woman, and I think that it is important to be seen and for people to not necessarily make us feel invisible," Keaira said. "But I think with Kamala, representation matters, and it's nice to be able to see myself within the candidates."

• Reporting: Jade Macmillan, Barbara Miller, Carrington Clarke, Brad Ryan
• Photography and video: Cameron Schwarz, Bradley McLennan
• Story production: Phoebe Hosier, Emilie Gramenz
• Digital production: Brad Ryan, Leigh Tonkin
• Graphics: Emma Machan