The 7 states most likely to decide the election for Biden or Trump

U.S. President Donald Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden participate in their first 2020 presidential campaign debate in ClevelandBrian Snyder/Reuters Images

• The electoral college has 538 votes to dole out for the presidential election. A candidate must receive 270 votes — just over half — to become the next president.
• The voting histories of individual states and territories allow experts to determine the ways each state is likeliest to vote. The political leaning of some states, however, are too close to predict ahead of time.
• With less than 35 days until November 3rd, there are seven states that have an outsized chance to decide the outcome of the presidential election, according to FiveThirtyEight.

As the last day of voting in the presidential election quickly approaches, there are just a handful of swing states which may decide the next president.

While most countries rely upon the popular vote for their elections, the United States utilizes the electoral college. The electoral college is fashioned by allocating varying amounts of electoral votes to each state or U.S. territory based on the combined number of House and Senate seats the states contain.

In Congress, each state is allotted two senators while the House bases its allotment of representatives on the Census-reported population of each state. California, for example, has 55 electoral votes compared to Montana's 3. In every state and territory except for Nebraska and Maine, all of a state's electoral votes go to whoever won the popular vote.

In total, there are 538 electoral college votes. For a candidate to win the presidency, they must receive at least 270 electoral college votes.

Given the demographics and voting histories of each state, pollsters and political scientists can determine with varying degrees of accuracy which candidate will win in most states. The remaining states are colloquially known as a swing states, or states whose polling is split down the middle and whose electoral college votes could go toward either candidate.

As some states are allotted more electoral votes than others, their votes tend to have an outsized effect on the final outcome of the presidential election and be the deciding factor as to which candidate reaches 270 electoral votes. According to FiveThirtyEight, there are seven states which may have an outsized influence on the election.

Here are seven of the states most likely to be tipping points in the presidential election: