The entire nation will vote on the next president of the United States this fall, but the election will likely come down to seven key swing states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina , Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. With the outsized importance of these states, it’s worth taking a closer look at the data we have in each of them — not just where the presidential race between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump stands today, but also each candidate’s path to victory and what issues could tip the election. Second up: the Silver State, Nevada, which is part of an increasingly purple swath in the Southwest .
The history
With one exception — 1976 — Nevada voted for the winner in every presidential contest from 1912 until 2016, when it broke its winning streak by voting for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton by just over 2 points. While it has only six electoral votes , those votes have proven decisive in the tight contests of the recent era. Nevada helped elect President Joe Biden in 2020, who carried the state by a nearly identical margin to Clinton’s, and in 2022, the purple state helped determine control of the Senate in a close race that took days to call .