Updated: November 4, 2020 11:28:52 pm
A closed election could result in litigation over voting and counting procedures in battle states.
Written by Nate Cohn
There are still seven undecided states in the presidential race. This is where they meet on Wednesday morning.
Wisconsin: Joe Biden leads by about 20,000 votes or by seven-tenths of a percentage point (which is almost exactly President Donald Trump’s margin of victory here in 2016). That may not sound like a staggering deficit, but there isn’t much reason to hope for Trump. Only a few districts remain in the entire state. This race could still be considered too close to call as long as there are still votes pending, but you can write this down in Biden’s column if you’re playing with what’s likely to happen from here.
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Nevada: Biden has a slight edge, but here again it’s hard to see where Trump is supposed to make up ground. The entire Election Day vote has been counted and now only the provisional ballots and Democratic-leaning late mail remain. Nevada election officials said no further results would be released until noon ET Thursday.
Arizona: The president has a much larger 5-point deficit in Arizona, so you might be surprised to learn that it’s still up for grabs. But there is uncertainty about the remaining vote. One thing we know: There are late mail ballots, received by the state in the last few days. These ballots generally tip Democrats, but this year they may not. So many Democrats rushed to vote early that most of the remaining absentee ballots are from registered Republicans. It’s possible these Republicans just went out and voted on Election Day. But they may also have sent in their ballots, which have yet to be counted. We will have a better idea later today when officials have said they hope they have finished counting the ballots.
Michigan: Trump had the upper hand here all night, but his path now looks bleak. The lead narrowed in the morning, and Biden has now surpassed it, with many votes remaining to count in heavily Democratic Wayne County. It’s also reasonable to assume that much of the pending vote is absent Democratic mail, which poll workers were unable to begin processing until Monday or Tuesday. This may not be particularly close to the end, and there is a good chance it will be called today. The secretary of state said Tuesday night that she hoped to have “a very clear picture, if not a final picture” of the results by Wednesday night.
If Biden captured Michigan, he would have the upper hand in states that could push his total past the 270 electoral vote threshold.
Pennsylvania: Looks are deceiving. This one might seem out of reach for Biden, with the president leading by 11 points. But Trump is in serious danger here too. The preponderance of the remaining vote is absentee mail, and Biden has won absentee votes by mail in Pennsylvania by a margin of 78% to 21%. More than 1.4 million absentee votes remain to be counted, according to the Secretary of State, and that does not include the ballots that could arrive in the coming days. If Biden wins these 1.4 million votes by the same margin that he has been winning them thus far, and it seems like a safe bet, he would get 800,000 votes, enough for him to come through. That said, it’s hard to be overconfident with so many ballots left to count. State officials expect the overwhelming majority of votes to be counted Friday.
Georgia: This might surprise people. Trump has a 2-point lead with more than 90% of the votes counted, but many Democratic votes remain in the Atlanta area. It could be enough for Biden. This one will surely be very close either way. The secretary of state has said he expects the winners of most state races to be announced Wednesday.
If Biden won Georgia, along with the other states mentioned so far, he would win more than 300 electoral votes.
North Carolina: This is the only state where Trump is the favorite. The race is not particularly close, but a big piece of the puzzle is missing: late-mail ballots. The state accepts mail-in ballots received after the election through Nov. 12, and there were about half a million absentee ballots pending before Election Day. Realistically, only a fraction of these ballots will be mailed. In 2016, there were only about 10,000, although there were far fewer absentee ballots that year. This year, a large number of ballots were not received by mail on Monday, which probably suggests that there will not be a large number of ballots today. However, we don’t know anything about this for sure. I guess the race won’t be called until we do.
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