The United States has a recent history of extremely close presidential elections.
In 2016, Donald Trump won against Hillary Clinton by less than 80,000 votes between Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin (Washington Post).
In 2000, George Bush famously won against Al Gore by only a few hundred votes in the state of Florida.
This question resolves YES if 100,000 votes or less (i.e. the total vote difference between the top two candidates) distributed over any number of states/districts, would have made the difference between one presidential candidate or the other winning by electors to the Electoral College.
See also:
1,000
3.00After another week of counting remaining ballots, the numbers are not substantially changed (totals from NYTimes):
Wisconsin: Trump beat Harris by 29,417 votes
Michigan: Trump beat Harris by 80,618 votes
Pennsylvania: Trump beat Harris by 129,504 votes
Georgia: Trump beat Harris by 115,096 votes
Nevada: Trump beat Harris by 46,193 votes
Arizona (not all votes in): Trump beat Harris by 184,481 votes
Wisconsin + Michigan + Georgia + Nevada would win the electoral college, their combined vote difference is 271,324 (closer by about 5k from last week).
Wisconsin + Michigan + Pennsylvania would win the electoral college as well, their combined vote difference is 239,539 (closer by about 10k from last week).
Since these totals are well-above 100,000 and only a small percentage of votes are outstanding, I'm inclined to resolve this question (and the other questions that are smaller in size) to NO. I'll leave the 200,000 version of this question open, perhaps until the "safe harbor" deadline of 11 Dec.
Votes are still being counted, but so far, per New York Times:
Wisconsin: Trump beat Harris by 29,367 votes
Michigan: Trump beat Harris by 81,596 votes
Pennsylvania: Trump beat Harris by 141,717 votes
Georgia: Trump beat Harris by 117,182 votes
Nevada (>95% counted): Trump beat Harris by 48,193 votes
Arizona (77% counted): Trump beat Harris by 161,175 votes
Wisconsin + Michigan + Georgia + Nevada would win the electoral college, their combined vote difference is 276,338.
Wisconsin + Michigan + Pennsylvania would win the electoral college as well, their combined vote difference is 252,680.
Neither of these combinations is within 100,000 votes. That means this election does not appear to be "extremely close".
Since mail-in ballots are still being counted, I will wait a little longer before resolving.
Surprised this question is at exactly 50% on so many traders.
Gone ahead and made more questions for higher and lower numbers:
- 200,000 votes
- 50,000 votes
- 10,000 votes
- 1,000 votes
@Conflux Took a look at the results as recorded on Wikipedia to verify. You're right.
Biden won 306 electoral votes to Trump's 232, so Trump could have flipped the result with 37 electoral votes. Biden won 37 electoral votes from Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin, and Nebraska's 2nd congressional district, but the difference between Trump and Biden's vote totals in these districts combined was 65,006 votes (so less than 100,000).
The source you link is also correct, but the 32,507 number is if you flip votes, so it's double counting (e.g. the difference between Trump and Biden in Arizona was 10,457, but Trump only needed 5,229 Biden voters to instead vote Trump to flip it).
@cash Ah, I see. Makes sense! The site I linked was a blog post that I myself wrote a few years ago, so I thought it was correct, but I wasn't sure if I'd calculated the same stat.