(NewsNation) — Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are neck and neck in polls taken of voters in key battleground states, according to recent polling released by NewsNation partner The Hill.
“There has been modest movement in the presidential election since the late August Emerson swing state polls before the presidential debate,” Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling, said in a statement.
With less than two months before the presidential election in November, both candidates have focused most campaign efforts on reaching voters in swing states.
To win the presidency, a candidate must get 270 electoral votes of the available 538. In 48 states along with Washington, D.C., the winning candidate gets all the electoral votes allocated to that state, but in Maine and Nebraska, electors are assigned using a proportional system. The Hill/Decision Desk HQ, as of Monday, projects:
- Harris has 181 solid, 35 likely and 10 leans electoral votes, for a total of 226.
- Trump has 131 solid, 58 likely and 30 leans electoral votes, giving him a total of 219.
- A further 93 electoral votes are expected to be determined in toss-up races.
Based on these projections and polling, The Hill/Decision Desk HQ predicts Harris has a 55% chance of winning the presidency.
Here’s a look at the states that will be most consequential to the outcome of the 2024 presidential election and how they voted historically:
Arizona
Arizona has 11 electoral votes.
Arizona has historically voted largely Republican in presidential elections between 1912 and 2020. In recent decades, the only times a Democratic nominee has won the state was former President Bill Clinton in 1996 and current President Joe Biden in 2020. Biden received more support from Arizona voters than they’d given any Democratic nominee since 1964.
As of Monday, The Hill/Decision Desk HQ model projects Trump has a 52% chance of winning Arizona.
Georgia
Georgia has 16 electoral votes.
From the turn of the century, Georgia voters were staunchly Democratic, which changed in 1964 when the state, for the first time, backed Republican nominee Barry Goldwater who lost to former President Lyndon B. Johnson by a landslide nationally. The following year, voters in the state backed George Wallace who ran under the American Independent Party against former Republican President Richard Nixon and Democrat Hubert Humphrey. The years that followed saw the state flip between the two parties until the early 1980s.
Since 1984, Georgia has voted reliably Republican, deviating to back a Democratic candidate just twice — in 1992 for former President Bill Clinton and again in 2020 backing President Joe Biden.
The 2020 election outcome in Georgia came under a national spotlight due to the narrow victory Biden held over former President Donald Trump — just 0.2 percentage points. Trump claimed falsely that the election was stolen and famously called the state’s then-Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger asking him to “find” the votes he needed to win the state.
As of Monday, The Hill/Decision Desk HQ model projects Trump has a 62% chance of winning Georgia.
Michigan
Michigan had 16 electoral votes in 2020, but because it lost population in the 2020 census, the state lost an electoral vote and currently has 15.
Beginning in 1972, the state voted Republican for five presidential elections before flipping to the Democrats in 1992, in favor of former President Bill Clinton.
Since then, the state has been consistently blue but flipped in 2016 to support former President Donald Trump. This turned the reliably blue state into a battleground state, even though Biden brought the state back to the Democratic Party when he won in 2020.
Between 1900 and 2020, according to Ballotpedia, Michigan voted for the winning presidential candidate 74.2% of the time.
As of Monday, The Hill/Decision Desk HQ models project Harris has a 64% chance of winning Michigan.
Nevada
Nevada has 6 electoral votes.
Republicans dominated the state from the late 1960s through the late 1980s, but the growing number of people coming into Nevada has made it a battleground state.
Former Democratic Secretary of State and former First Lady Hillary Clinton beat Trump 48% to 46% in the 2016 election, though she lost the overall election. Besides that year, 1976 was the only other year since the 1910s that the winner in the Nevada election did not go on to win the White House.
In 2020, Biden won Nevada by about 2.5 points.
Ballotpedia reports that Nevada voted for the winning presidential candidate 87.1% of the time between 1900 and 2020.
As of Monday, The Hill/Decision Desk HQ models project Harris has a 63% chance of winning Nevada.
North Carolina
North Carolina had 15 electoral votes in 2020, but gained one in 2024, bringing their total to 16.
Although residents voted almost exclusively for Democrats from 1876 to 1964, similarly to other states in the South, it began voting Republican in 1968 as the dismantling of Jim Crow laws and the Civil Rights movement deepened racial fissures.
Former President Barack Obama reversed the trend by beating Republican Sen. John McCain by about 14,000 votes in 2008. The state pivoted after Obama’s terms ended, favoring Trump in both in 2016 and 2020.
According to Ballotpedia, North Carolina voted for the winning presidential candidate 64.5% of the time from 1900 through 2020.
As of Monday, The Hill/Decision Desk HQ models project Trump has a 65% chance of winning North Carolina.
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania lost an electoral vote from 2020 to 2024, going from 20 to 19 as the population has declined.
Although Pennsylvania voters favored the Democrat in the six elections prior to 2016, Trump won the state that year by 0.7 percentage points. Biden clinched Pennsylvania back for Democrats in 2020, this time by 1.2 points.
From 1900 to 2020, Pennsylvania voted for the winning presidential candidate 77.4% of the time, per Ballotpedia.
As of Monday, The Hill/Decision Desk HQ models project Harris has a 53% chance of winning Pennsylvania.
Wisconsin
Wisconsin has 10 electoral college votes.
Although it was Republican through 1928, according to 270towin, Wisconsin became Democratic following the Great Depression and World War II.
Get fact-based, unbiased news coverage 24/7 with the NewsNation app. Download it here.
Until 1984, Wisconsin voted Republican more often than not. However, from then on until 2012, Democratic presidential nominees were favored in the state. Trump broke this streak by winning narrowly against Hillary Clinton in 2016. Biden turned the state blue again in 2020.
Wisconsin voted for the winning presidential candidate 77.4% of the time between 1900 and 2000, per Ballotpedia.
As of Monday, The Hill/Decision Desk HQ models project Harris has a 56% chance of winning Wisconsin.