Live maps of election results in swing states

This Election Day, all eyes are on the seven critical swing states that will determine which candidate… Vice President Kamala Harris or former President Donald Trump – will be the next commander in chief.

Turnout is especially important this year in Wayne County, Michigan (Detroit), Mecklenburg County in North Carolina (Charlotte), and Fulton County in Georgia (Atlanta). These large, Democratic-leaning cities and their inner suburbs are an important source of Democratic votes in statewide elections. Republican candidates tend to do well in more rural areas of these states.

CONNECTED: Forget about fluctuating states; Here are the swing districts

To win the White House, you need 270 electoral votes, and these swing states have a collective 93 votes that will ultimately decide who wins.

Here’s the latest presidential election coverage in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin:

Arizona (electoral votes: 11)

Arizona, once considered red, is now a key battleground state in the race for the White House.

Biden won the state by 0.3% in 2020, and his 49.4% support was the highest level for a Democratic candidate since 1964.

More than 60% of the ballots cast in Arizona’s 2020 presidential election came from Maricopa County, home to Phoenix and much of the state’s population. Biden won 50.3% of the vote in Maricopa in 2020, beating Trump by about 45,000 votes, and that was enough to win the state by just over 10,000 votes.

Georgia (electoral votes: 16)

Georgia remains one of the main leaders in the presidential elections. It’s been a fairly reliable Republican state for presidential candidates in recent history, but 2020 showed the state could flip from red to blue, with Biden winning by a very narrow margin of 12,670 votes, or 0.25% of roughly 5 million cast ballots.

Previously, the Peach State had not voted for a Democratic president since Bill Clinton in 1992.

In statewide elections, Republicans tend to perform best in smaller, more rural counties in the northern, central and southeastern regions of the state, while Democrats perform best in the communities of Atlanta, Augusta, Columbus, Macon, Savannah and Athens. .

In particular, districts in the Atlanta area are usually vital to a statewide victory, but for different reasons. Fulton and DeKalb are overwhelmingly Democrats, giving Biden 73% and 83% of the vote in 2020. Hillary Clinton also won supermajorities in both districts in 2016, but with 69% and 81% of the vote, respectively. She lost Georgia to Trump.

Michigan (electoral votes: 15)

Michigan has traditionally been a Democratic stronghold, supporting blue candidates from 1992 to 2012.

The state was one of three presidential battlegrounds, along with Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, that narrowly went to Republican Donald Trump in 2016 after nearly 30 years of Democratic support for the presidency. Four years later, Democrat Joe Biden carried all three states back to Democrats with a margin of about 154,000 votes in Michigan out of more than 5.5 million votes cast.

Trump and Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris have campaigned aggressively in pursuit of Michigan’s 15 electoral votes since becoming their parties’ nominees, with a particular focus on vote-rich Detroit and its suburbs, as well as Kent County to the west, where Grand -Rapids and the key moment. state territory.

Nevada (electoral votes: 6)

Nevada has only six Electoral College votes, making it the smallest prize among the seven presidential battleground states. Biden narrowly won Nevada in 2020, receiving 33,596 more votes than Trump.

Nevada has one of the best presidential records in the country. The winning candidate in the state has won the White House in 27 of the last 30 presidential elections. It voted for the losing candidate only in 1908, 1976 and 2016, when Democrat Hillary Clinton led the state. Democrats have won Nevada in the last four presidential elections.

More than two-thirds of the votes in Nevada came from Clark’s hometown of Las Vegas. In Nevada, Biden lost 14 of the state’s 15 counties, but his 91,000-vote margin over Trump in Clark was enough to give him a statewide victory of 34,000 votes.

North Carolina (electoral votes: 16)

North Carolina has voted for a Democrat for president only once in the last few election cycles (Barack Obama in 2008). In 2020, Trump’s lead in North Carolina was just 74,481 votes, just over 1 percentage point, the lowest of any state he won that year over Biden.

Hurricane Helen could have a significant impact on voter turnout in North Carolina. The storm’s impact was severe in Buncombe County and the Asheville area, one of two counties in western North Carolina that Biden carried four years ago. The region’s remaining counties are reliably Republican and, along with Buncombe, have endured a level of destruction that the state’s Democratic governor, Roy Cooper, called “unlike anything our state has ever faced.”

This year, political observers are also wondering whether the scandals surrounding Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, North Carolina’s controversial GOP gubernatorial candidate, will help Democrats in the lead.

Robinson’s re-election campaign has been in a stalemate since September, when CNN reported that he posted racist and explicit messages on a porn site’s message board more than a decade ago.

Another media report claims that Robinson, who was supported by Trump, was a regular at porn shops in Greensboro in the late 90s and early 2000s.

Pennsylvania (electoral votes: 19)

With 19 electoral votes, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is the biggest prize among the battleground states and an important part of both campaigns’ path to victory.

Pennsylvania was one of three “blue wall” swing states that narrowly voted for Trump in 2016 after nearly 30 years of voting for Democratic presidential candidates; the others were Michigan and Wisconsin. Four years later, Democrat Joe Biden carried all three states back to Democrats with a margin of about 80,000 votes in Pennsylvania out of more than 6.9 million votes cast. States remain key electoral prizes this year.

In Pennsylvania, the Philadelphia suburbs will play a significant role. Philadelphia’s Bucks, Montgomery, Chester and Delaware counties are among the wealthiest in the state. These are historic Republican strongholds that have drifted to the left for decades. Democratic presidential candidates have won three of them since the 1992 election; Chester switched between parties throughout the 2000s.

Wisconsin (electoral votes: 10)

Wisconsin is no stranger to close presidential elections. In state elections in 2020, 2016, 2004 and 2000, the margin of victory was less than a percentage point. So it could happen again this Election Day.

Wisconsin was one of three “blue wall” states (the others being Michigan and Pennsylvania) that narrowly voted for Trump in 2016 after nearly 30 years of voting for Democratic presidential candidates. Four years later, Democrat Joe Biden carried all three states back to Democrats with a margin of about 20,000 votes in Wisconsin out of nearly 3.3 million votes cast.

In Wisconsin, voter turnout will be significant in counties surrounding Milwaukee. These key counties are Washington, Ozaukee and Waukesha, known colloquially as the “WOW” counties. These historically Republican-leaning communities are slowly moving left, with Republican presidential candidates winning recent elections, but by increasingly smaller margins.

That forces Republicans to turn to more of the state’s rural areas rather than relying on those districts to offset losses in the state’s urban Milwaukee and Dane counties, home to Madison, the state capital and main campus of the University of Wisconsin. Trump will have a good night if high turnout and margins in “WOW” counties look more like the early 2000s than 2020.