US election: The swing states could decide who becomes president

To win the US election, you simply need to win a majority of the 538 electoral votes in the country's 50 states and the District of Columbia.

The number of electoral votes a state has is proportional to its population, and generally the candidate who receives the most votes in a state receives all of the electoral votes.

Based on polls and voting histories, the results of many states are a foregone conclusion – with 30-point wins in the last two elections and a 30-year history of Democrats coming to power, California's 54 electoral votes, for example, are by quite a margin Security The winner is US Vice President Kamala Harris.

Analysts like the Cook Political Report estimate that 226 electoral votes will likely go to Democrats and 219 to Republicans.

That leaves 93 electoral votes that are considered a miscalculation, spread across seven states that could swing either way on election night. These states are Pennsylvania (19 electoral votes), Georgia (16), North Carolina (16), Michigan (15), Arizona (11), Wisconsin (10) and Nevada (6).

These swing states will most likely determine the path to the presidency, with candidates needing to win a combination of votes to surpass the 270 mark and secure a majority.

The mathematics

There could well be some surprises after the votes come in – Iowa, for example, is not considered a swing state, but a last-minute poll placed Harris ahead of Donald Trump, making his strong opinion of the state even more uncertain.

However, assuming things turn out as expected, Harris needs to secure 44 electoral votes from swing states to reach 270 and become the next US president, while Trump needs 51 of those votes.

That could come from any number of state combinations, but Pennsylvania, the largest of the swing states with 19 electoral votes, will be a key factor.

For example, if Trump wins Pennsylvania, a victory in Georgia and North Carolina (and the other states assumed to be on the Republican side) would be enough to win the election.

The picture becomes clearer as the evening progresses – although in 2020, during the pandemic, the large number of mail-in ballots and close races meant that in many key states the decision was not made until days after the election.

Below you'll find a breakdown of each swing state, their voting history, and when we can expect the first results after the polls close.