Which State Will Be the Most Closely Decided in the 2024 Presidential Election?
Battlegrounds Nevada and North Carolina have never hosted the nation’s most competitive race
Barring a major 11th hour shift in the 2024 presidential election race, all signs point to one of seven battleground states coming in with the smallest victory margin: two in the Midwest (Michigan, Wisconsin), two in the South (Georgia, North Carolina), two in the West (Arizona, Nevada), and one in the Northeast (Pennsylvania).
[A major shift to Kamala Harris would likely put Florida or Texas in play for that designation and a large shift to Donald Trump would do the same for Minnesota and New Hampshire].
Pennsylvania is the most coveted battleground state for both parties as it owns the largest number of Electoral College votes, but it has been a rarity for Northeastern states to produce the biggest nail-biter of the cycle over the last century.
Across the last 21 cycles since 1940, only once has a Northeastern state hosted the closest presidential contest in the nation.
That occurred during Ronald Reagan’s 1980 Electoral College blowout against President Jimmy Carter, when Reagan eked out a 0.15-point victory in Massachusetts. [Sixteen states were decided by less than five points that cycle including eight states by fewer than two points].
From 1828 through 1936, Northeastern states tallied the most competitive contest in 14 of 28 cycles, although it should be acknowledged that the region owned a larger percentage of the number of states in the union during many of these decades.
Over the last eight election cycles since 1992, each of the most narrowly decided states were located in the Midwest or the South:
- 1992: Georgia (0.59 points)
- 1996: Kentucky (0.96)
- 2000: Florida (0.01)
- 2004: Wisconsin (0.38)
- 2008: Missouri (0.13)
- 2012: Florida (1.07)
- 2016: Michigan (0.22)
- 2020: Georgia (0.24)
Of the 2024 battleground states, Nevada and North Carolina have never hosted the most competitive race in the nation.
The presidential margin of victory in North Carolina has been the second closest in the nation four times since 1828: in 1852 (0.94 points), 1992 (0.79), 2008 (0.33), and 2012 (2.04) while Nevada has hosted the second closest once (1996, 1.06 points).
The closest presidential election has twice occurred in Georgia (1992, 2020) and Michigan (1940, 2016) and once each in Arizona (1964), Pennsylvania (1840), and Wisconsin (2004).
Since 1828, Kentucky leads the way with the most competitive race in five cycles (1896, 1900, 1920, 1952, 1996) followed by California (1868, 1880, 1892, 1912), Maryland (1828, 1832, 1872, 1904), and Missouri (1908, 1956, 1968, 2008) with four cycles each.
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– NC: …four times in runner-up position…perhaps this time the state will at last be the *bride* rather than a bridesmaid of the “most closely decided”.
– Georgia was also the second closest state in terms of *raw numbers of votes* in 2020.
– If past voting history is anything to go by, the D ticket must carry at least either the Peach State or the Old North State – in addition to the Old Dominion – in order to attain at least 270 votes (the party came up agonizingly short in 2016, 2004, 2000, and 1968 because it had carried fewer than two of the eleven ex-confederate states in those cycles).
12 days left, get out and VOTE up and down the ballot like your lives depend on it.
– If recent history is any accurate predictor, GA, MI, or NC seems likely to be the “most closely decided” state, though PA is still likely to be the so-called Tipping Point State (the two are not synonymous, FYI).
– If I am not in error, the battleground states during the 1884~1892 period (and perhaps a cycle or two before and/or after) comprised of just five – CT, IL, IN, NJ, and NY (none of which have such status today).
– With a microscopic 10,704-vote margin (out of nearly 4.8 M cast) was MI in 2016 the state with the smallest *raw vote margin* as well?