Why Voters in a Handful of Swing States Will Decide the US Presidential Election

PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION - WASHINGTON. The winner of Tuesday's U.S. presidential election will govern a nation of more than 330 million people, but the contest will almost certainly be decided by just tens of thousands of voters – a tiny fraction of the populace – in a handful of states.

That's because only seven of the 50 states are truly competitive this year, with the rest all comfortably Democratic or Republican, according to public opinion polls. Among those seven battlegrounds, Pennsylvania, the most populous, stands out as the most likely state to determine whether Democrat Kamala Harris or Republican Donald Trump is the next president.