Because the race is so close in 2024, it is a reminder of how few votes decided the seven swing states in 2020

Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are neck and neck in national and state polls heading into Election Day.

As of November 1, Harris and Trump were only 1.2% apart in the national polling average of 538 people.

At the state level, none of the candidates has a lead of more than 2 percentage points in the swing states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

These seven battleground states will determine who gets the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House.

How close were the swing state margins in 2020?

President Joe Biden narrowly won six of the seven states in 2020, some by just 11,000 or 12,000 votes.

Biden defeated Trump by reversing the “blue walls” of the states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania that Trump won in 2016.

Biden also won Georgia and Arizona, two states that have long been Republican strongholds.

Trump won North Carolina by 74,481 votes, which was smaller than his lead over Hillary Clinton in 2016.

In total, 386,769 votes out of 158 million votes cast nationwide in these seven states determined the outcome of the 2020 election.

The signs point to another close race

Since Harris succeeded President Biden as the Democratic front-runner in late July, Harris and Trump have never been more than three percentage points apart in the national poll average of 538.

According to 538, the two are in a dead heat in Nevada and Pennsylvania.

Pennsylvania is seen as a possible turning point for Electoral College victory. If Harris wins the state along with the rest of the Midwest's “blue wall” and Nebraska's 2nd Congressional District, she will receive 270 votes. If Trump wins Pennsylvania and retains all the states he won in 2020, he would also have to overtake Georgia to win.

In Michigan and Wisconsin, Harris has a one-point lead over the former president. Polling averages show Trump with a single percentage point lead in North Carolina and a two percentage point lead in Georgia and Arizona.

However, these margins would be within the margin of error of a typical survey.