Who wins the 2020 U.S. presidential election will be determined by voters in about a dozen battleground states. Expect to see the campaigns of Joe Biden and Donald Trump paying a lot of attention to these areas.
Play the game below to see how these states could determine who will win the presidency. Learn more about voters in each state and what could influence who they cast their ballots for. Assign each state’s electoral college votes to see what it means for the candidates and the combinations that would push Biden or Trump to a winning 270 electoral college votes.
It takes 270 electoral college votes for a candidate to win the presidency. The 13 battleground states we’ve selected hold 199 electoral college votes.
Neither candidate has enough votes for the presidency. Select more states to see who wins.
Here's how you distributed the 199 electoral college votes from the 13 battleground states. Change your choices in individual states or play again by hitting start over.
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Districts to watch:
Maine and Nebraska are rare states that don't grant all of their electoral college votes to a single statewide winner. Both have districts that the Democrats and the Republicans will be looking to take on election night.
Maine District No. 2
One electoral college vote is up for grabs in the more rural congressional District No. 2, which Republicans won in 2016 for the first time in decades. Maine itself, with just four electoral college votes, would only figure into deciding the presidential election winner if it’s an exceptionally close race. It could, however, play a huge role in deciding who controls the U.S. Senate. And control of the Senate means control over legislation, federal appointments and who fills future court vacancies. The seat belonging to Republican Susan Collins is high on Democrats’ target list. The Maine Republican has racked up huge victories since her first election to the chamber in 1996, but polls show her in a difficult race against the top-ranking member of the state House, Sara Gideon. There’s a Canadian lobster connection: During a visit here in August, Trump complained that Europe was buying more Canadian than U.S. lobster, and his administration has launched an investigation.
Nebraska District No. 2
Ruby-red Republican Nebraska hardly belongs on a list of swing states. However, one electoral vote is potentially up for grabs here. Nebraska offers five electoral votes in total — two for the winner of the statewide popular vote, then one for each of the state’s three districts in the U.S. House of Representatives. Trump is virtually certain to win the statewide vote and two of the three districts in Nebraska, which he carried by 25 points last time. But one of the three districts — the one centred in the state’s largest city, Omaha — is a question mark: Democrats won District No. 2 in 2008; Trump narrowly won it by two per cent in 2016. The most interesting political story in Nebraska, from a Canadian perspective, is whether the Keystone XL oil pipeline that originates in Alberta will ever get built through this state. The fight against the pipeline began here, and hasn’t ever stopped. Trump wants Keystone XL completed; Biden says he’d block it.