Margins

Just how close was the 2020 presidential election? To see how this fits in with earlier elections, read “The Blue/Red Divide.”

How to interpret this? Mainly, just how close-run a thing it was: 21,500 votes out of more than 105 million could have changed the election outcome. It does also mean that if one-half of Jill Stein’s (Green Party) voters had voted for Clinton instead of her, in just those three states in 2016, Clinton would have won the national election; and if one-half of Jo Jorgensen’s (Libertarian) voters had voted for Trump instead of her, in just those 3 states in 2020, Trump would have won the national election. (And if one-half of the people in Florida who voted for Ralph Nader in 2000 had voted for Gore instead, he would have been president.) Go figure.