Testing the Midwestern assumption

Every now and then, a moment comes when the assumptions underlying a nation's politics are completely overturned.

- MIHIR S SHARMA

For India, this moment has come occasionally—most recently in 2014, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi won a majority for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), overturning a decades-long consensus that coalitions would always be necessary to rule in New Delhi.

This week, the United States (US) may face one of those moments. The battle between Vice-President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump is a test of the sole political principle of the administration led by Ms. Harris' boss, President Joe Biden. And that is that the key to the White House is framing policies for the white working class in the American Midwest.

For more than two decades, American politics has revolved around the states of the Midwest. In the 2004 election between John Kerry and George W. Bush, it was Ohio that was decisive. That state has now shifted completely into the red, Republican column. Since Hillary Clinton lost in 2016, the deciding Midwestern states have been the former Democratic bastions of Michigan and Wisconsin. Even if Ms. Harris wins these, she may still lose if she cannot bring home Pennsylvania—which has never technically been Midwestern but does share cultural and economic signifiers with that region.