The titanic Biden-Trump election likely will be decided by roughly 6% of voters in just six states, top strategists in both parties tell us, Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei write.

• Each side will spend billions to reach those voters over the next six months.

Why it matters: Roughly 244 million Americans will be eligible to vote. But 99.5% of us won't be deciders: We won't vote. Or we always vote the same way. Or we live in states virtually certain to be red or blue.

🔬 Zoom in: Both campaigns are obsessed with six states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

• Those were the battlegrounds disputed by Donald Trump after the 2020 election. And they're the '24 toss-ups, as rated by The Cook Political Report with Amy Walter.
• A seventh state, North Carolina, is included in some swing-state polls. It's rated "Lean R" by Cook. The other 43 states are either "solid" or "likely" for one of the parties.

🥊 Reality check: In our private conversations, Democrats are a lot more worried about November than Republicans are. Democrats say the race is winnable. Republicans think they're winning. The swing-state map is a big reason why.

• An April poll of swing states by Bloomberg and Morning Consult found President Biden two points ahead in Michigan, with Trump ahead or statistically tied in every other swing state.

🔎 Between the lines: The Trump campaign is talking to that 6% of persuadable voters when it hammers immigration, crime and inflation.

• Biden is aiming at the 6% when he emphasizes abortion, democracy and stability — and says in response to Trump's vows for a second term: "Do you want to go back to any of that? I don't think so."

🧮 By the numbers: Biden's winning margin in the six swing states in 2020 totaled just over 300,000 votes out of 158 million cast for president nationwide.

• The Washington Post found that the winner would have changed by flipping just over 81,000 votes in four states (Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin and Georgia).

🖼️ The big picture: Doug Sosnik, a senior adviser to President Clinton and widely followed election oracle, tells us the map is so narrow largely because states are tightly clustered by educational level, turning them predictably red or blue.

• "Education now transcends race as the best predictor of voting," he told us. "People are increasingly choosing to live around others who share their values and beliefs, which has led to a homogenization of how communities vote."

👀 What we're watching: At the RNC's spring meeting in Palm Beach, Fla., over the weekend, Trump's campaign showed donors a deck arguing that Minnesota and Virginia — both of which Biden won handily in 2020 — belong on the list of states in play.

• A top Democratic strategist dismissed that as spin. "MN is to them what FL is to us," the strategist texted. "Attractive but unwinnable.

Go deeper: Sosnik memo from 2023 on education as the new fault line in U.S. politics.

• Coming soon from Axios: A multipart tour of the unique political, economic and social conditions in each battleground state, powered by Axios Local reporters.

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⚡ Breaking: The Israeli army on Monday ordered tens of thousands of people in the southern city of Rafah in the Gaza Strip to begin evacuating, signaling that a long-promised ground invasion could be imminent. Get the latest.

The Biden administration — highly concerned Israel will invade Rafah — put a hold on a shipment of U.S.-made ammunition to Israel last week, two Israeli officials told Axios' Barak Ravid.

• Why it matters: It's the first time since the Oct. 7 attack that the U.S. has stopped a weapons shipment intended for the Israeli military.

The incident raised serious concerns inside the Israeli government and sent officials scrambling to understand why the shipment was held, Israeli officials said.

Behind the scenes: Secretary of State Tony Blinken visited Israel last week and had a "tough" conversation with Netanyahu regarding a possible Israeli operation in Rafah, two sources briefed on the meeting said.

• Blinken told Netanyahu during their meeting that "a major military operation" in Rafah would lead to the U.S. publicly opposing it and would negatively impact U.S.-Israel relations.

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Jeffrey Katzenberg — the entertainment-industry icon who over the course of his career has been involved with 400+ movies, 41 animated movies, 85 TV shows, and five Broadway plays — told Dan Primack last evening at a poolside Axios event in L.A.:

• "Generative AI is going to be the most empowering and powerful set of tools ever put in the hands of filmmakers."

🔮 What to watch: Katzenberg said a film that now requires 500 animators, five years and $150 million-200 million, within two or three years could take 50 animators, six months and $15 million.

• "There are only literally three, four companies in the world that could afford to make those kinds of movies," he said. "To say that two years from now, hundreds of companies around the world ... will be able to do that is optimistic, not doomsday."

"Each and every form of storytelling," Katzenberg added, "whether it's writing a book or a poem or telling a story or doing a TikTok video, they are all going to be radically and dramatically impacted by these new ... creative storytelling tools."

More working-age women are employed than ever before in U.S. history, Axios' Emily Peck writes from data in Friday's jobs report.

• Why it matters: The rise in flexible work arrangements is likely helping.

Get Axios Markets, out today with a deep-dive on the child care industry.

Generative AI has hit Hollywood — but you have to look hard to see it, Axios' Megan Morrone writes.

• Why it matters: Film and TV makers are winging it — further eroding the line between reality and fiction.

Media companies and content creators keep getting caught not disclosing their use of generative AI.

• Netflix's recently released true crime documentary "What Jennifer Did" included images that appear to have been created or altered with generative AI.
• Fans of HBO's "True Detective" noticed posters in the background of one scene that showed tell-tale signs of AI.
• The directors of the horror film "Late Night with the Devil" had to go on the defensive to explain their use of AI for three still images in the movie.

👂 What we're hearing: Documentary fans argue that AI-generated images introduce falsity into the historical record.

• Fans of fictional dramas say that AI art steals jobs from artists, which ruins their enjoyment of the films.

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"These people [Democrats] are running a Gestapo administration," former President Trump told GOP donors at Mar-a-Lago on Saturday, according to an audio recording obtained by several news organizations.

• The White House's Andrew Bates responded: "Instead of echoing the appalling rhetoric of fascists, ... President Biden is bringing the American people together around our shared democratic values and the rule of law."

Embattled ABC News president Kim Godwin told her staff last night that she will "retire from broadcast journalism," according to an internal note obtained by Axios' Sara Fischer.

• Why it matters: Godwin, who joined ABC News from CBS in 2021, was the first Black woman to lead a major broadcast news division.

Between the lines: Sources told Axios that many ABC journalists felt Godwin was more focused on promoting herself than investing time in them.

• The appointment in February of longtime Disney executive Debra OConnell as president of a newly created division overseeing ABC News was seen as a demotion for Godwin.

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Above: In Jerusalem's Old City yesterday, an ultra-Orthodox Jewish man walks by a projection of a yellow Star of David that reads "Jude" — "Jew" in German — resembling the label Jews were forced to wear in Nazi Germany.

• Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, began last evening in Israel.
• It's one of the most somber days of the year in Israel, highlighted by a two-minute siren when traffic halts and people stand at attention in memory of the victims.

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