Key Counties to Watch

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Chris Krueger:
Good morning. Welcome back to TD Cowen Street Cred. I am Chris Krueger with TD Cowen's Washington Research Group, and will attempt to translate K Street to Wall Street faster than a speeding Acela and even faster if you juice up the playback. We are now seven weekly pods in a row with less than one week until election day when voting ends. Just less than 150 hours until that election hopefully ends, we wanted to take you through a bit of a driving tour of the 33 most important counties to watch on election night. It's a big country, but a pretty small election when you really drill down. We count 33 bellwether counties in 13 states to watch on Tuesday, November 5th. Apologies to California, but you close too late and you count too slow. But California is the state to watch for the House, which is critical next year for tax and fiscal policy, given the debt ceiling and 5 trillion plus in tax and fiscal cliffs at year-end.
So in chronological order of state all closures with all times Eastern. Okay, in the 7 PM hour, we have both Georgia and Virginia. Three counties to flag here in Georgia. Cobb County. This is really ground zero for Nikki Haley primary voters. Biden won this by double digits in 2020, which really shows the transition of Georgia demographics. This is the old Newt Gingrich seat, also, my wife's hometown county, so shout out to Caroline.
The other county to watch in Georgia will be Fayette County. Trump won this in both '16 and in 2020. This is another Atlanta suburb by the airport, but this is a county Trump definitely has to win again. Finally, in Virginia, we're going to go down to Prince William County. This is the Fredericksburg area. This is one of the key house races in the country, Virginia 7.
This is a currently Democratic-held seat. The Democratic congresswoman is running for governor next year. If Republicans are going to take the House, this is a prime pickup opportunity. Virginia is also a good state to watch just in terms of momentum one way or the other. 2016 that Virginia was one of the first places where we got a sense that Trump actually was probably going to win. So if Virginia hasn't been called on election night by, call it, 8:30, nine o'clock, that's probably a really good sign for former President Trump. Obviously, if Trump won Virginia, we can all go to bed pretty early. It's going to be a Republicans landslide. Conversely, if it's called pretty early for Harris and the Democrats win that Virginia 7 House seat, could be a really good night for Democrats. Okay, the 7:30 PM hour, we've got five counties we're watching, four of them are in North Carolina.
First up with North Carolina, we've got Cabarrus County. Again, probably a lot of Nikki Haley primary voters here. This is basically Northeast Charlotte. Trump won this county by about 10 points in 2020, so Trump would obviously want to expand that number. Next up is the Meck, right? This is Mecklenburg County. Huge population growth in the last couple of years, essentially Charlotte.
Harris needs big numbers here, which Biden got in 2020. To win the state, Harris is going to have to outperform Biden here. The next one is probably one of the best bellwether counties in the nation. This is New Hanover County. This is essentially the Port of Wilmington. New Hanover also, nice for folks watching at home, tends to count pretty quickly. This is a county that narrowly went for Biden in 2020 despite Trump winning the state. So Harris is going to have to outperform Biden in Wilmington to have a chance at the state.
Finally, the final county we're watching in North Carolina is Wake County. Harris needs to improve on Biden numbers here. This is known as one leg of the research triangle and another county with huge population growth. So when you comp these counties relative to 2020, obviously if Trump is doing better than his 2020 numbers, probably really good, really good place for the former president to be and Harris looking to eclipse Biden numbers.
This is the first of the seven key swing states that we're watching. The final county in that said that kind of unique 7:30 time slot is Cuyahoga County in Ohio. Ohio is not going to be a competitive battleground state in the electoral college, but this is a key Senate race and Cuyahoga is Cleveland. Sherrod Brown needs massive numbers out of Cuyahoga County to have any chance at winning reelection. Typically doesn't come in super early, so when those rural numbers in Ohio are coming in, keep waiting because Cuyahoga is the biggest one for Democrats.
Okay, we're getting into the heart of the order here. 8:00 PM has a tremendous amount of poll closures. We've got 1, 2, 3, 4 states we're watching. Double-digit counties in the 8:00 PM hour. Again, though, this is when the polls close, so you're not going to see reporting out of a lot of these counties, but 8:00 PM, alphabetical and chronological, Miami-Dade in Florida.
Biden beat Trump by seven points in Miami-Dade. If Trump wins Miami-Dade like DeSantis did in the 2022 midterms, Florida's done. That's important not really for the Electoral College, but more for the Senate race. If Rick Scott can win reelection in Florida, that really starts closing any possibility for the Democrats to keep control of the Senate. All right, four counties in Michigan, Kent, Saginaw, Ingham, and Wayne. Why are we watching these four? Kent County, this is Grand Rapids. This is basically ancestral Republican county.
This is where the Gerald Ford Presidential library is. If Harris is going to win the state of Michigan, keep an eye on Kent County. Gerald Ford's daughter has endorsed Harris, probably a lot of Nikki Haley primary voters here. About 300,000 of them voted for Haley in that closed Republican primary. The second county in Michigan is Saginaw. This is a county that Trump is going to have to flip if he wants to win the state. We're talking north of Detroit. Biden won this county in 2020 by less than 1000 votes. Ingham County is basically Lansing. This is one of the key House races, Michigan 7. Biden won this county by over 30 points, so Harris is going to want similar numbers. Huge, huge vote share there, second only to Wayne County. Biden won Wayne by almost 40 points. This is Detroit, so Harris needs big numbers out of Wayne if Democrats are going to win Michigan again.
Okay, the state with the most counties we're watching, no surprise at all, is Pennsylvania. Six counties in Pennsylvania to watch on election night. First one is Allegheny, right? This is Pittsburgh. Harris really needs Biden numbers or better. Allegheny County was one of just two counties in Pennsylvania along with Montgomery County outside of Philly, where Democratic votes increased enough to give Biden that definitive win four years ago.
Allegheny County delivered close to 50,000 more votes for Biden than the average Democratic presidential candidates have had since 2000. So Pittsburgh is going to be a big deal. Second one is Bucks County. Bucks is one of the core four around Philly where had been ancestral Republican counties, right, Tom Ridge voters, lot of Nikki Haley primary voters here. Harris is going to have to really squeeze out every vote in Bucks. Again, this is sort of around Doylestown.
Third county is a Trump County. This is Cambria. Trump really needs to improve his 2020 numbers here. This is Johnstown, right? This is John Murtha territory from back in the day. Next county is probably the most important county in the entire country. This is Erie County, absolute Northwest Pennsylvania. Trump won this in 2016. Biden won in 2020. This is arguably the bellwether's bellwether. Final two Pennsylvania counties, we've got Lackawanna County, home of Dunder Mifflin around Scranton, and then Lehigh. This is Allentown. This is the Pennsylvania 7 House race. Two very important regions for both candidates. From Pennsylvania, we're going to take a trip down to Texas, mainly for the Senate race. We had already mentioned that Florida race. Two counties to watch in Texas for that. Ted Cruz, Colin Allred match, Tarrant County, this is Fort Worth.
And then Fort Bend. This is Sugarland and the Houston suburbs. Keep an eye there or for Senate margins. All right, we're almost there. In the 9:00 PM hour, we've got four states, Arizona, Nebraska, New York, and Wisconsin. Arizona's got two. The issue with one of them is that it could take 10 days to count. That's Phoenix and the suburbs.
Second big one is Santa Cruz County in Arizona. That's basically on the border with Mexico. That's viewed as a real bellwether for the Latino vote nationally. Nebraska, this is Douglas County, this is Omaha. You have a key House race, a key Senate race, and a single electoral college vote to watch in Nebraska. Okay, New York state of mind, we've got three marquee house races. We've got Rockland County with New York 17. We've got Nassau County on Strong Island with New York 4. And then we've got Broome County up in Binghamton with New York 19.
All right, three counties in Wisconsin. We've got Brown County. That's the Green Bay bellwether. This leans Republican. Trump's got a rally there with Brett Favre in the next couple of days. Also key for that Senate race with Tammy Baldwin. Okay, Wisconsin one of the three counties. This is Waukesha. Keep an eye out for a lot of Nikki Haley primary voters here that could well be voting for Harris.
And then finally in Wisconsin, we've got Dane County. This is the home of Madison. A lot of college kids who seem like they have voted early for Kamala Harris. Keep an eye on Dane County though. All right, 10:00 PM, we are in Nevada. The two big counties here are Clark and Washoe. Clark is about three quarters of the state vote. Harris needs big numbers coming out of Las Vegas. And then Washoe County has picked every presidential winner since 2004. This is essentially Reno and Tahoe bordering California. All right, thanks for taking the driving tour across the some 3000 counties in the greatest country in the world. That's a wrap. This has been Chris Krueger with TD Cowen's Washington Research Group for Street Cred.
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