Every four years, tens of millions of Americans head to the polls to choose the next president. But because of the Electoral College, not all votes are created equal. As history can attest, sometimes presidential elections can be decided by a few thousand—even a few hundred—votes.
When Donald Trump was elected in 2016, he won the Electoral College with 306 votes. But that wasn’t a landslide by any measure. The final tally was Trump 304, Clinton 226, Others 7. The vote count included two deviant votes from Colorado and Minnesota, which were replaced, and the votes of seven voters who had switched their support to another candidate (mostly from Democrats to Republican).
In 2024, the race for the presidency started with several candidates, but Biden quickly fell behind. His stumbling, meandering debate performance and raspy voice made him seem much weaker—both physically and mentally—than his opponent. Increasingly, prominent Democratic-leaning politicians and news organizations called for him to withdraw from the race.
Since then, Harris has gained ground and appears poised to win the Democratic nomination with a majority of the electors. But it seems unlikely that anything will shake up the race significantly between now and November 5. Harris still has a roughly two-point lead over Trump in the national popular vote, according to FiveThirtyEight’s average. And that’s not even counting the votes of those voters who are undecided or planning to vote for a third-party or independent candidate.