Six States That Held the Key to the 2020 Presidential Election

In the 2020 election, it wasn’t just the candidates who were being closely examined. The real story unfolded in a few counties that had the power to decide the presidential race. These battleground areas, from Florida to Texas, were the focus, with election analysts searching for early clues that might indicate where key states were headed.

Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan, North Carolina, Arizona, and Texas counties swung between political parties and quickly morphed into must-watch locations. All votes were counted, and even the tiniest shifts in turnout could change the electoral map.

As the results rolled in, it was like watching a high-stakes drama. And these counties provided some of the first hints about where the country was headed, as the race stayed incredibly close. Ultimately, they showed that local communities could play a major role in a national election.

More details below

Sumter County, Florida: For Joe Biden, there is no more valuable prize than Florida. If he takes this state, the presidency is his, regardless of what else happens on Tuesday night. And early returns from Sumter County, home to that sprawling retirement community known as The Villages, will almost certainly show whether Biden has a real chance of winning the Sunshine State. In 2016, Sumter went for Donald Trump by a giant margin over Hillary Clinton—68.8% to 29.5%—and it went solidly Republican in both 2008 and 2012. But many political forecasters, including Dave Wasserman of the Cook Political Report, are predicting a “gray revolt” for Biden, based largely on seniors’ concern over the coronavirus and their anger over the Trump administration’s bungled response to the pandemic. “Trump’s newly adopted home state of Florida is a must-win for his hopes of a second term,” Wasserman recently wrote. “But if the ‘gray revolt’ against him depicted in polls and dispatches from The Villages comes to pass, it should be apparent quickly on election night.’’ (Another county to watch: Pinellas, which backed Trump after twice voting for Barack Obama.)

Luzerne County, Pennsylvania: Both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris made campaign stops in Luzerne County, in northeastern Pennsylvania, on the final Monday before Election Day. This working-class county, not far from Biden’s childhood home of Scranton, is emblematic of the swing in the state populace that flipped Pennsylvania from blue to red in the last two elections. Barack Obama won Luzerne by five percentage points in 2012, but Trump took it by 19 in 2016. It’s expected to be a key battleground again this year, and should give a good indication of whether Biden can win back this part of Pennsylvania and thus the state itself.

Kent County, Michigan: As we get closer to Election Day, Michigan seems an increasingly safe bet for the Biden campaign, thus reversing the nightmare of 2016, when Hillary Clinton lost the state by just shy of 11,000 votes. But if Biden wants to win Michigan, he almost certainly needs to carry Kent County. This county, the home of Gerald R. Ford and a place where the Republican establishment (including Education Secretary Betsy DeVos) still dominates the local political and economic scene, might seem an unlikely place to propel Joe Biden to victory. But in 2016, it went for Donald Trump by only 9,000 votes over Hillary Clinton, and then, in 2018, the Democratic candidate for governor, Gretchen Whitmer, won the county by four percentage points over her Republican rival. That Donald Trump seems to recognize the importance of holding onto Kent County is indicated by the fact that the president chose Grand Rapids, the county seat, for his final appearance on the 2020 campaign trail, giving a speech that seemed to sum up his divisive, corrosive reelection campaign. “I’ve fought for you harder than anyone has ever fought before,” Trump said during a speech given at midnight to a crowd gathered at the Gerald R. Ford International Airport. “Do you want to be represented by a politician who hates you?” (In terms of turnout, the key Democratic counties to watch are Genesee, home to Flint, and Wayne, home to Detroit. Joe Biden and Barack Obama made their only joint appearance of the 2020 campaign in those two cities on Saturday.)

Nash County, North Carolina: North Carolina has been a reliably red state in recent elections, with Republican nominees for the White House winning the state in 10 of the last 12 elections. Barack Obama took the state in 2008 but then lost it to Mitt Romney in 2012. In 2016, Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton by 3.6 percentage points. But in 2020, the state is definitely up for grabs, though Trump probably needs it more than Biden if he is going to get to 270 electoral votes. “Most paths to the White House go through North Carolina,” Chris Cooper, professor of political science at Western Carolina University, recently told CBNC. “It’s particularly true for President Trump.” One key indicator of how the state might go is Nash County. This once-reliable Republican stronghold, which gave GOP candidates double-digit victories in 2000 and 2004, went for John McCain by just a margin of 1.3% in 2008, for Barack Obama by 0.9% in 2012, and for Trump by a razor-thin 0.2% in 2016.

Maricopa County, Arizona: Home to Phoenix and more than 60% of the state’s electorate, Maricopa is Arizona’s most important county and the one that will almost certainly determine which candidate will win the state’s 11 Electoral College votes. It went narrowly for Donald Trump in 2016 (and strongly backed John McCain in 2008 and Mitt Romney in 2012), but in 2018 it supported a Democrat, Kyrsten Sinema, for U.S. senator. Will the county’s changing demographics, which have been trending younger and more highly educated, tip the state to a Democratic president for the first time since 1996? Advance voting recently passed 2.4 million, and exit polls suggest that Democrats held the edge in that balloting.