Which election do you consider to be "Closer"

[Orser67]

I guess the one argument for 2016 being "closer" would be that the loser won the popular vote by a larger margin.

But for me, I think closeness is better determined by looking at how much the national popular vote would have to shift for the loser to have won (assuming a uniform nationwide shift), with the caveat that a small number of extremely close elections also contained some post-election maneuvering that could plausibly have affected the result. 2000 obviously has 2016 beat on both counts; it would have required a 0.01% shift for a Gore win, and the result may well have changed had Bush suffered adverse court rulings.

2020 was definitely one of the closer elections, though. Trump won the tipping point state, Wisconsin, by 0.77%. Excluding 2000, you'd have to go back to 1960 to find a closer tipping point state.