US Election Results: How Harris can defeat Trump with exactly 270 electoral votes

Republican candidate Donald Trump is inching closer towards victory every minute, securing 230 electoral votes so far, slimming the chances of Kamala Harris' victory and the return of a Democratic government.

While experts have decoded the aftermath of the race to the White House if Trump and Harris end up in a tie, what remains of interest is that Harris could still defeat the former US president with exactly 270 electoral college votes if she manages to bag the swing states of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.

Harris and Trump are locked in a head-on fight as both the leaders take striking leads in the votes' figures.

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However, the chances of the vice president winning these three swing states is also becoming narrower by the second. Trump is leading in all three of these states with over 50% of the votes projected in his favour. 

Donald Trump has also won his first swing state of North Carolina with 50.9% vote, making the presidential race to be a bigger challenge for his Democratic opponent, Kamala Harris.

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Notably, the outcome of Harris still having the chance of emerging victorious remains contingent on her winning all of the swing states that Joe Biden won in the 2020 Presidential elections.

The 2020 elections

In the previous race to the Oval Office, Biden had secured six of the seven swing states of Arizona (49.4% votes), Georgia (49.5% votes), Michigan (50.6% votes), Nevada (50.1%), Pennsylvania (50.0%), and Wisconsin (49.4% votes), while Trump won just one – North Carolina, with 49.9% votes.

Biden won the race to the White House, securing an overall of 51.3% votes nationally.  He got the lead to become the 46th President of the United States after Pennsylvania's 20 electoral votes placed Biden above the must-needed 270.

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Swing states and their electoral votes

An electoral college is a process which includes the selection of electors by voters. These electors then meet and cast votes to pick the next President and vice President of the United States of America.

A candidate needs 270 of the 538 electoral college votes to be declared as the winner. Each of the states get assigned a certain number of electors based on the number of seats they represent in the House of Representatives and Senate.

Among the seven swing states, which are the key battlegrounds for the presidential elections, Arizona has 11 electoral votes, Georgia has 16, Michigan 15, Nevada 6, North Carolina 16, Pennsylvania 19, and Wisconsin 10.

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The crucial case of Pennsylvania was also evidently seen in the last of the election campaign as both the presidential candidates chose to give their respective final pushes from the state.

Meanwhile, the latest national polls that were released on Sunday and Monday showed a tied race for the Oval Office with near-tossups in all seven swing states, making it an extremely unpredictable race.

While some polls showed Harris leading by four points, some showed her to be ahead by just a one-point margin. Polls conducted by Reuters/Ipsos and CBS/YouGov showed Harris in lead by one point, while the two candidates were tied in the recent surveys conducted by The New York Times/Siena College, Emerson College and CNN/SSRS.

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