Their Voices Matter: How Zelensky's Visit Could Affect US Elections

Their Voices Matter: How Zelensky's Visit Could Affect the US Elections Natalia Belzetskaya

Volodymyr Zelensky spent a week in the United States, where he held a number of high-level meetings. The visit was quite successful, and its main achievement was that Ukraine was once again actively discussed.

Political scientist and Americanist Alexandra Filipenko told Channel 24 about this, noting that the topic of Ukraine was one of the most important on the agenda for American politicians. Although since the beginning of Iran's strikes on Israel, the United States' attention has been focused on the Middle East.

How Zelensky's visit could affect the US elections

On the eve of the elections, Americans are interested exclusively in their domestic issues. The population wants to know about inflation, salaries, trade unions, and school safety. Foreign policy always takes a back seat at this time.

But thanks to the visit of Volodymyr Zelensky, the holding of a UN Security Council meeting on Ukraine and the active speeches of various politicians, public attention is again focused on Ukraine, noted Alexandra Filipenko.

It is no coincidence that Kamala Harris is now investing in three states where her support is unstable. We are talking about Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. It is worth understanding that the election results are often influenced by votes from states in which the population doubts until the last.

For example, to win in 2020, Joe Biden gained 80 thousand more votes in the state of Pennsylvania. They were the ones who won. At the same time, 700 thousand voters of Polish origin, 120 thousand of Ukrainian origin and 80 thousand of Lithuanian origin live in the state. In total, this is almost a million people.

Let me remind you that the election results were decided by only 80 thousand votes. The situation is the same in other states. Therefore, it is not for nothing that Harris' team launched three commercials that show the protection of US allies, including Ukraine, – noted Alexandra Filipenko.

To counterbalance, the videos recalled how Kamala Harris reacted to the start of the war back in 2014 and what J.D. Vance, Donald Trump's vice presidential candidate, said at that moment. Then he said that he didn't care about what was happening in Ukraine, and Trump himself praised Vladimir Putin.

“Therefore, it is no coincidence that such serious attention is being paid to voters of Ukrainian, Polish and Lithuanian origin. After all, these votes will be fundamentally important in states where support fluctuates,” the American political scientist emphasized.