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The presidential race is too close to call, likely again coming down to the Rust Belt trio of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
But the results so far suggest that former President Donald Trump has improved his performance in most of the country over 2020, and if Vice President Kamala Harris still manages to win, it will be by a very narrow margin.
The only swing state called by a major news outlet late Tuesday was North Carolina, which was called for Trump. The former president is also well positioned to win Georgia, where more than 90 percent of the vote has been counted. Harris likely won’t be able to count on Arizona, the swing state where he polled the worst, though it will take some time to count votes there.
If Georgia and Arizona really fall to Trump — and remember they haven’t been called yet, he’s looking strong there — Harris’ path to victory depends on winning. Three of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. If he loses just one person in this scene, it’s over for him. (The other remaining swing state, Nevada, would be very slow in the count, but would be too small to make much of a difference in the Electoral College.)
All three of these Rust Belt states are still nearby. Trump leads the current count in all three, though many uncounted votes remain from Democratic-leaning precincts.
But notably, outside of swing states, Trump is on track to do significantly better than he did in 2020, so the scenario for a Harris victory depends on the Rust Belt defying an apparent nationwide swing in Trump’s favor.
For example, Biden won Virginia by 10 points. As of late Tuesday, with more than 80 percent of the state’s votes counted, Harris led Trump by just 1.7 percentage points. That margin is sure to widen when counting more Democratic areas, but per The New York Times poll predicts countless, He will likely finish somewhere close to a 5-point win, significantly worse than Biden.
Similar dynamics are playing out in many other states, and Trump completely swept Florida, winning it by nearly 13 percentage points. (In 2020, Trump won Florida by a little more than 3 percentage points.)
In fact, it’s quite possible that Trump could win the national popular vote. That will take some time to determine, as it will depend on the final margin in slow-counting states like California.
But what really matters is how the Rust Belt states end up, and we’re still waiting to learn that.
