How Close Were The Close States?

The 2024 Election Results

Electoral vote: Trump 312, Harris 226, Others 0. Five states had a margin of less than 3 percentage points. Trump won 30 of 51 jurisdictions (states plus DC).

Popular vote: Trump +2.0 (preliminary may drop to Trump + 1.5 when all votes counted). Others 1.9% (Green 0.5%, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. 0.5%, Libertarian 0.4%, all others 0.5%). The electoral college bias was pro-Trump by 0.1 percentage points, although this could grow to pro-Trump by 0.6 percentage points when all votes are counted.

The closest Presidential election results (all states or districts with separately won electoral votes with a margin of less than 10 points):

ME-2 (1) Trump + 9.0
AZ (11) Trump + 5.5 Flipped
NC (16) Trump + 3.4
NV (6) Trump + 3.1 Flipped
GA (16) Trump + 2.2 Flipped -- Others 0.7%
PA (19) Trump + 2.1 Flipped --- the marginal state -- Others 1.0%
MI (15) Trump + 1.4 Flipped -- Others 1.7%
WI (10) Trump + 0.8 Flipped --- the closest state -- Others 1.2%

NH (4) Harris + 2.8 -- Others 1.0%
MN (10) Harris + 4.2
NE-2 (1) Harris + 4.3
VA (13) Harris + 5.2
NJ (14) Harris + 5.5
NM (5) Harris + 5.9
ME (statewide) (2) Harris + 6.7
IL (19) Harris + 9.6

Realistically, no states were flipped by third-party spoiler effects in 2024. This was theoretically possible in MI and WI, but in MI 0.5% of the third-party vote went to RFK, Jr. who dropped out and endorsed Trump, and in WI the same was true. The remaining third-party votes in these states were split between the Green candidate (0.8% in MI and 0.4% in WI) and the Libertarian candidate (0.4% in MI and 0.3% in WI).

Both images are from Wikipedia.

Bottom line: 2024 was a much less close election than 2020 in terms of the marginal state electoral vote margins, but was more close in terms of the popular vote.

The 2020 Election Compared

In 2020, the electoral vote was 306 Biden, Trump 232, Others 0. Biden won 27 out of 51 jurisdictions (states plus DC). The marginal state was AZ was Biden + 0.3. Five states had a margin of less than 2 percentage points, and seven states had a margin of less than 3 percentage points.

The popular vote in 2020 was Biden + 3.4. Others 1.8% (Libertarian 1.2%, Green 0.3%, all others 0.4%). The electoral college bias was pro-Trump by 3.1 percentage points.

Selected state by state results in 2020 were as follows:

Several states may have been flipped by third-party spoiler effects in 2020, which may have even flipped the overall outcome.