If you want to understand just how razor-thin the margins were in the last presidential race, look no further than the Peach State. It’s kinda wild when you think about it. After millions of people stood in long lines or mailed in ballots during a global pandemic, the whole thing basically came down to a few thousand people in a handful of counties. Georgia ended up being the closest state in 2020 election, a fact that turned the state into the center of the political universe for months.
Honestly, the numbers are almost hard to believe. Joe Biden won Georgia by exactly 11,779 votes. That might sound like a lot if you're filling a stadium, but in a state where nearly 5 million people cast a ballot, it’s a rounding error. Specifically, the margin was 0.23%. That is significantly tighter than Arizona, which usually gets a ton of the "closest race" headlines but actually finished with a 0.31% gap.
The Breakdown: Why Georgia took the crown
You've probably heard about the "Blue Wall" in the Midwest, but Georgia was the real shocker. It hadn't gone for a Democrat since Bill Clinton in 1992. So, how did it become the closest state in 2020 election? It wasn't just one thing. It was a perfect storm of demographic shifts, massive suburban swings, and a level of turnout that stunned everyone.
In the suburbs around Atlanta—places like Gwinnett and Cobb counties—the shift was massive. These used to be deep red strongholds. Not anymore. Biden managed to grow the Democratic vote share there significantly compared to 2016. At the same time, Donald Trump maintained a huge grip on rural areas, keeping the race so close that it required multiple recounts to finally put to bed.
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Comparing the Tipping Points
People often confuse "closest state" with "tipping point state." While Georgia was the narrowest by percentage, Wisconsin was actually the state that technically put Biden over the 270 electoral vote threshold. Here is how the narrowest margins looked when the dust finally settled:
- Georgia: 0.23% (11,779 votes)
- Arizona: 0.31% (10,457 votes)
- Wisconsin: 0.63% (20,682 votes)
- Pennsylvania: 1.16% (80,555 votes)
See the difference? In Arizona, the raw vote count was actually lower than Georgia's, but because Georgia had a higher total turnout, the percentage in Georgia was smaller. That's why experts call Georgia the "closest" by the standard metric.
Recounts, Audits, and More Recounts
Because the margin was under 0.5%, things got messy fast. Georgia didn't just count once. They did a full manual hand count of every single one of those 5 million ballots. Can you imagine the logistics of that? Thousands of workers sitting in warehouses, literally touching every piece of paper.
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That hand audit actually found some uncounted ballots in a few counties, which narrowed the lead slightly for Trump, but not nearly enough to change the outcome. Then, the Trump campaign requested another machine recount. After all that, the result stayed the same. It was a massive stress test for the local voting infrastructure.
The Maricopa Factor
While Georgia was the statistical winner for "closest," Arizona's Maricopa County became a symbol of the 2020 election's intensity. Biden was the first Democrat to win there since Harry Truman. That’s a 72-year streak broken. The growth in the Phoenix suburbs mirrored what happened in Atlanta, showing that the "Sun Belt" is no longer a guaranteed win for the GOP.
What Most People Get Wrong
A common misconception is that the "closest state" is always the one that decides the election. That’s not true. If Trump had won Georgia, he still would have lost the Presidency because he needed to flip several other states too. However, Georgia mattered for another huge reason: the Senate.
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Because the presidential race was so tight, it drove record turnout for the two Senate runoff elections that happened in January 2021. Those races eventually gave Democrats control of the Senate. So, while Georgia might have just been one state on the map, its "closeness" had a massive domino effect on how the country was governed for the next four years.
Why the Margin Matters for 2024 and Beyond
Looking at the closest state in 2020 election isn't just a history lesson. It’s a roadmap.
- Micro-Targeting: Campaigns now know that 12,000 votes is the difference between winning and losing. They are spending millions on tiny groups of voters.
- Legal Precision: Because of the 2020 experience, both parties have "legal armies" ready in Georgia. They expect every single vote to be scrutinized.
- Demographic Shifts: The "Atlanta effect" is real. As more people move to the metro area, the state's political DNA is changing in real-time.
Basically, if you're watching future elections, you can bet your house that Georgia will be one of the last states to call. The patterns we saw in 2020 haven't disappeared; if anything, the divide has only deepened.
Next Steps for You: To see how these margins have shifted over time, you should check the official Georgia Secretary of State historical archives. It’s also worth looking into the MIT Election Data and Science Lab, which provides granular breakdowns of precinct-level shifts that explain why these suburban areas flipped. If you want to dive deeper into the legal side, the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) has a great database on how recount laws have changed since 2020 in response to these tight finishes.