2020 is the 2nd closest election in modern history

[ElectionsGuy]

2020 is going to be the least decisive victory besides 2000 in the modern era, just slightly closer than 2016.

A candidate's electoral vote tally is of course completely misleading. The margin they won the tipping-point state in the electoral college tells us a lot more about how decisive the election actually was. Here's every election from closest to largest (up to 10%) by that measure - how much the winning candidate won the tipping point state by. 2012 and 2020 had very similar popular votes, but 2012 was a decisive win for Obama, while 2020 was a very narrow win for Biden.

I shaded the years below by "party system" - a defined system of political time periods.

2000: R+0.0% (FL)
1884: D+0.1% (NY)
1916: D+0.4% (CA)
1876: R+0.5% (SC)
2020: D+0.6% (WI)
2016: R+0.8% (WI)
1960: D+0.8% (NJ)
1948: D+0.8% (IL)
1888: R+1.1% (NY)
1976: D+1.7% (WI)
1880: R+1.9% (NY)
2004: R+2.1% (OH)
1968: R+2.9% (IL)
1892: D+3.4% (NY)
1992: D+4.7% (TN)
1896: R+4.8% (OH)
1944: D+5.0% (NY)
2012: D+5.4% (CO)
1900: R+6.6% (OH)
1940: D+6.9% (PA)
1868: R+7.4% (AR)
1988: R+7.9% (MI)
1980: R+7.9% (IL)
1996: D+9.2% (PA)
2008: D+9.5% (IA)
1908: R+9.6% (KS)

[Calthrina950]

It's astonishes me that if only ~45,000 voters in Wisconsin, Arizona, and Georgia had voted differently, the Electoral College would have been tied, and it would have been thrown into the House of Representatives for the first time since 1824 (or 1876 if you count the chicanery surrounding Hayes' victory). And Biden has built a popular vote lead of over seven million votes, much larger than the two million vote lead of Hillary Clinton in 2016. The Biden campaign was correct in approaching this as a tight election and not taking things for granted.

[Samof94]

It's astonishes me that if only ~45,000 voters in Wisconsin, Arizona, and Georgia had voted differently, the Electoral College would have been tied, and it would have been thrown into the House of Representatives for the first time since 1824 (or 1876 if you count the chicanery surrounding Hayes' victory). And Biden has built a popular vote lead of over seven million votes, much larger than the two million vote lead of Hillary Clinton in 2016. The Biden campaign was correct in approaching this as a tight election and not taking things for granted.

True.

[Catalyst138]

I just realized New York was the tipping point in 4 consecutive elections (1880 to 1892). Probably because of the urban-rural divide and how big of a prize the state was.

I could easily see the same thing happening with Texas from like 2032 to 2044.

[McGarnagle]

It's interesting

2020 is technically closer than 2016 in terms of the tipping-point state, but it doesn't feel closer. Part of the reason may be that the winner won the popular vote this time.

[Mr. Smith]

2020 seems to be in a weird spot like 2008 where the Tipping Point differs by the party.

It really was Pennsylvania for Trump like the campaign thought it would be, and it was Wisconsin for Biden.

Also, it was Colorado [by 9] in 2008 of consequence to Obama, NOT Iowa. Iowa was only the tipping point if McCain was leading.

[Vosem]

2020 seems to be in a weird spot like 2008 where the Tipping Point differs by the party.

It really was Pennsylvania for Trump like the campaign thought it would be, and it was Wisconsin for Biden.

Also, it was Colorado [by 9] in 2008 of consequence to Obama, NOT Iowa. Iowa was only the tipping point if McCain was leading.

It was de facto Wisconsin -- given that the tie-breaker is a vote by House delegations and Republicans still held a majority of House delegations in 2018, it seems like it's beyond doubt that any 269-269 scenario was a Trump reelection. (Which interestingly means the "pivot map" -- which states are left or right of the tipping point -- stayed exactly the same between 2016 and 2020, even though you had fairly large shifts in tilt in some swing states, like FL/GA/NH).

(By contrast, Democrats did control a majority of House delegations after the 2006/2008 elections, and it really isn't clear which party might've had an advantage if 2008 had ended up as a tie -- by universal swing out I think Democrats still hold the advantage in a tie -- so it's fair to say that something like 2008 was a "tie" for the pivotal state. But the pivot for 2020 is very, very clearly Wisconsin; had Trump won it and every state to its right he would've gotten a second term.)

[Amanda Huggenkiss]

What a stupid electoral system

[One Term Floridian]

It's astonishes me that if only ~45,000 voters in Wisconsin, Arizona, and Georgia had voted differently, the Electoral College would have been tied, and it would have been thrown into the House of Representatives for the first time since 1824 (or 1876 if you count the chicanery surrounding Hayes' victory). And Biden has built a popular vote lead of over seven million votes, much larger than the two million vote lead of Hillary Clinton in 2016. The Biden campaign was correct in approaching this as a tight election and not taking things for granted.

Yes, exactly. Which is why Biden/Harris was an A+ campaign. They did the work they needed to in the vital rust belt and didn’t get too dug in all over the muh trendz mapz although GA was nice! Can you even imagine how much more physical/mental/economic destruction we’d see if this was sent to the House?!

Somehow, someway we HAVE to at least try to reform the Electoral College system goddammit. This is not a good way to do things in this country. Demagoguery both foreign and domestic WILL take advantage of this built-in flaw in our constitution.

[Pericles]

My main reaction to this is just such relief that Biden made it. Of course margins matter, but ultimately he'll be President for the next four years.

The closeness of Trump's victory also was supposed to be a worrying indicator but 2020 was a different election and with a different path he nearly pulled it off again, 2024 too will be a different election so we can't assume too much about it.

[America Needs a 13-6 Progressive SCOTUS]

This was not supposed to be a close election. We ran a very weak ticket in Biden/Harris.

[Gustaf]

While I get it and I've used this myself, this also feels like a strange metric to me in a way. The tipping point state only matters because of the electoral college, so why not just look at the electoral college directly? 

[ElectionsGuy]

While I get it and I've used this myself, this also feels like a strange metric to me in a way. The tipping point state only matters because of the electoral college, so why not just look at the electoral college directly? 

Because of the electoral college's winner-take-all nature. Donald Trump was 37 electoral votes away from winning (more than John Kerry) but was 0.6% away from winning those electoral votes (closer than John Kerry).

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

This was not supposed to be a close election

Why do people keep saying this? Have you missed every trend for the past 4 years? It absolutely was going to be a close election and always was going to be one. This is how our country and a lot of people in it are.

Polarization and negative partisanship are through the roof, and the electoral college favors Republicans with the current alignment. This is almost precisely how many expected this election to pan out this spring.

[Mr. Morden]

While I get it and I've used this myself, this also feels like a strange metric to me in a way. The tipping point state only matters because of the electoral college, so why not just look at the electoral college directly? 

This metric gets at the question of how close an election was to going the other way, in the sense that a minor change in circumstances might have swung things towards the losing candidate.  In both 2016 and 2020, for example, if just 1% of the winning candidate's voters had voted for the losing candidate, then we'd have a different candidate winning.

But that's not true in the case of 2004, for example, even though the electoral college tally was closer.  That's because in that case, Kerry would have needed Ohio (or some other state that voted more Republican than Ohio) to flip to him in order to win, and the margin in Ohio was more than 2%.  So we weren't really all that close to seeing a Kerry victory.

[lfromnj]

It's astonishes me that if only ~45,000 voters in Wisconsin, Arizona, and Georgia had voted differently, the Electoral College would have been tied, and it would have been thrown into the House of Representatives for the first time since 1824 (or 1876 if you count the chicanery surrounding Hayes' victory). And Biden has built a popular vote lead of over seven million votes, much larger than the two million vote lead of Hillary Clinton in 2016. The Biden campaign was correct in approaching this as a tight election and not taking things for granted.

Yes, exactly. Which is why Biden/Harris was an A+ campaign. They did the work they needed to in the vital rust belt and didn’t get too dug in all over the muh trendz mapz although GA was nice! Can you even imagine how much more physical/mental/economic destruction we’d see if this was sent to the House?!

Somehow, someway we HAVE to at least try to reform the Electoral College system goddammit. This is not a good way to do things in this country. Demagoguery both foreign and domestic WILL take advantage of this built-in flaw in our constitution.

I was hearing a few days before the election that Iowa was still competitive  because Biden went to Iowa.

[Skill and Chance]

BTW Truman needed California (+0.4%) to keep it out of the House, and he would have needed all of the Thurmond state delegations to win in the House, which was no sure thing, so 1948 should be counted as closer than 2020. 

[Statilius the Epicurean]

Just goes to show how contingent and in a sense almost random US political history is. Change one small factor and Clinton wins in 2016. Then change another small factor and Trump wins re-election. To say nothing of Gore 2000, or going even further back Charles Hughes winning 1916 and leading the United States into the First World War instead of Wilson.

My favourite what-if in 20th century US politics is if Nixon beat JFK in 1960 and the GOP became the party of civil rights.

[Agonized-Statism]

This was not supposed to be a close election. We ran a very weak ticket in Biden/Harris.

Yeah, and anyone who tried to say that was dogpiled. 2020 really was the unstoppable force and the immovable object- a president who's done everything wrong versus a very weak ticket.

[Obama-Biden Democrat]

I just realized New York was the tipping point in 4 consecutive elections (1880 to 1892). Probably because of the urban-rural divide and how big of a prize the state was.

I could easily see the same thing happening with Texas from like 2032 to 2044.

As its peak NY state had 47 EVs and PA was at 36 EV's. FL was a malarial infested humid swamp.

[brucejoel99]

I just realized New York was the tipping point in 4 consecutive elections (1880 to 1892). Probably because of the urban-rural divide and how big of a prize the state was.

I could easily see the same thing happening with Texas from like 2032 to 2044.

As its peak NY state had 47 EVs and PA was at 36 EV's. FL was a malarial infested humid swamp.

It still is.

[Catalyst138]

Just goes to show how contingent and in a sense almost random US political history is. Change one small factor and Clinton wins in 2016. Then change another small factor and Trump wins re-election. To say nothing of Gore 2000, or going even further back Charles Hughes winning 1916 and leading the United States into the First World War instead of Wilson.

My favourite what-if in 20th century US politics is if Nixon beat JFK in 1960 and the GOP became the party of civil rights.

I like the 1912 what-ifs because there were three potential presidents. If more delegates at the RNC had supported Roosevelt, he would have won. If Roosevelt had reluctantly backed Taft instead of running third party, Taft would have won. And of course in reality, Wilson won. Those three presidents would all have dealt with WW1 very differently (and if Taft won it would probably be his successor to get into the war).

The idea of Nixon winning in 1960 makes me wonder what Kennedy’s political career would be after that. He obviously wouldn’t be dead so there’s a good chance he could have won in 1968 after two Nixon terms.

[Tender Branson]

Biden won by 7 million+ votes.

Not close.

Abolish the Electoral College.

[Skill and Chance]

Just goes to show how contingent and in a sense almost random US political history is. Change one small factor and Clinton wins in 2016. Then change another small factor and Trump wins re-election. To say nothing of Gore 2000, or going even further back Charles Hughes winning 1916 and leading the United States into the First World War instead of Wilson.

My favourite what-if in 20th century US politics is if Nixon beat JFK in 1960 and the GOP became the party of civil rights.

I like the 1912 what-ifs because there were three potential presidents. If more delegates at the RNC had supported Roosevelt, he would have won. If Roosevelt had reluctantly backed Taft instead of running third party, Taft would have won. And of course in reality, Wilson won. Those three presidents would all have dealt with WW1 very differently (and if Taft won it would probably be his successor to get into the war).

The idea of Nixon winning in 1960 makes me wonder what Kennedy’s political career would be after that. He obviously wouldn’t be dead so there’s a good chance he could have won in 1968 after two Nixon terms.

Ehhh... 2000 (Gore likely loses to McCain in 2004 and we get even more ME involvement than we got with Bush), 1960, 1916 (because Wilson immediately entered WWI anyway), 1884, and 1876 (they agreed to do what Tilden/Dems wanted anyway to get Hayes elected) seem like elections where not much was at stake.  In the US system, most close elections end with the victor not being able to enact much of their policy platform.

A lot was at stake in 2016 but Trump's win was actually quite robust (the most robust of the PV losers).  1968 was also consequential, but it was also a lot more robust than the PV looks.

Of the closest elections in the EC, what would have changed US history the most would be 1948 going to the House (more consequential than an outright Dewey win). 

[Gass3268]

Biden won by 7 million+ votes.

Not close.

Abolish the Electoral College.

https://twitter.com/LarrySabato/status/1325465642754068480?s=20

https://twitter.com/brianklaas/status/1334138925795975169?s=20

https://twitter.com/JoshuaADouglas/status/1335218799931494401?s=20

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