The saying of like Democrats have got to fall in law, Republicans fall online and

I sort of think that in the case of some of our candidates

and I'm like this year to be honest I think we have the most qualified

Democratic candidates that we've ever had in North Carolina and it is

genuinely extremism versus experience on your ballot all the way down in our state.

Hello and welcome to Why is this happening with me, your host, Chris Hayes? You know, every single election in America, every single election in America, every single

last one, school board, state rap, works the same way, person that gets the most votes becomes the office holder they're seeking.

They win the election, they get to serve in that role.

There are places that have, you know, ranked choice voting, but that's the same

rule everywhere. The most votes, you win the election, except for one election. There's one election in

America that does not work that way, and that's the most important election that's the

election for president it's the only election in America where you can win if you

don't get the most votes and what that means is presidential elections are just run in a totally different way.

They have their own kind of gravity and law.

And we have this institution of the swing state because you have to win states and all but two states

have a kind of winner-take-all system for their electoral

college votes, which means if you win the state you get all of them.

Even if you win by 10 votes or 100 votes.

This year, we've got the sort of usual crop of swing states, three the so-called

blue wall Pennsylvania Michigan and Wisconsin which are three that Barack

Obama carried both times. Donald Trump won those narrowly in 2016, thereby giving him the Electoral College victory.

Joe Biden won them back in 2020.

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