The candidate who gets to 270 electoral votes is the one who wins the presidency, and the fate of Harris and Trump is likely to hinge on the outcomes in the seven battleground states: Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada and North Carolina.
Here are some of the ways Harris may reach 270 that seem most plausible, given past election performance:
Mr. Biden won six of the battleground states in 2020: Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. He won 306 electoral votes overall. Going into Election Day 2024, polls are close to even in these states.
If Harris wins Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, the “blue wall” Midwestern states Mr. Biden took in 2020, and earns 3 of Maine’s 4 electoral votes, but she loses Arizona, Nevada and Georgia, that would not deliver Harris the White House.
In this hypothetical, Trump would also hold onto all the states that he won in 2020 and four of Nebraska’s five electoral votes, as he did four years ago.
That scenario would put Harris at 269 electoral votes — one shy of keeping the White House under Democrats’ control. To get to 270, Harris would have to win a congressional district in Nebraska that includes the city of Omaha. The state awards some of its electoral votes by congressional district, and winning Nebraska’s Omaha-based district that Mr. Biden captured in 2020 but Trump held in 2016, would make Harris president.
— Hunter Woodall and Olivia Rinaldi