Competitive Presidential Election States: 2020 vs. 2016
By 270toWin Staff
December 21, 2020
Most competitive states in the 2020 presidential election, with a comparison to 2016. The faithless electors in 2016 are ignored for this analysis.
Decided by 5% or less
Eight states were decided by 5% or less in the 2020 presidential election. This is down from 11 states (and one congressional district) in this category in 2016. However, the net change was only a reduction of 10 electoral votes. Georgia (16 electoral votes) was the only state added to the list in 2020. It was the closest state in the country, decided by about 0.25%. The other four states flipped by Joe Biden: Pennsylvania (20), Michigan (16), Arizona (11) and Wisconsin (10) were also decided by 5% or less in 2016.
Exiting this category were Minnesota (10), Colorado (9), New Hampshire (4), Maine at-large (2) and NE-2 (1). All these states, except Colorado, were decided by between five and ten points (bottom map). The Democratic margin of victory was 13.5% in Colorado vs. 4.9% in 2016. This 8.6% shift was the 2nd largest change in the country behind Vermont's 9.5%.
