Sixty-six elections nationwide were decided by 10 votes or fewer between Sept. 2023 and Sept. 2024. Thirty-five of those were decided by 5 votes or fewer. Democrats won 21 of these elections, Republicans won 30, and nonpartisan or minor party candidates won 15.

This year, the race decided by 10 or fewer votes with the most votes cast was in Orange County, Fla. Nicole Wilson won a nonpartisan election to represent District 1 on the county commission over Austin Arthur by two votes out of 28,122 cast. The race with the fewest votes cast was the Libertarian primary for New Mexico House District 43, where Chris Luchini defeated Phillip Mach by five votes out of 31 cast.

Every year, Ballotpedia covers thousands of elections at all levels of government—from the halls of Congress down to school boards in all parts of the country. While there are plenty of elections where a candidate wins big, there are also several that are decided by a dozen or fewer votes.

Since 2018, there were 629 elections decided by 10 or fewer votes. Of those 629 elections, 372 were determined by fewer than five votes, including 91 decided by a single vote. Members of the Democratic Party won 129 elections decided by 10 or fewer votes, while Republicans won 157, and nonpartisan or minor party candidates won 343. Among these elections, the race decided with the fewest total votes was a 2022 election for Wilson Elementary School District in Arizona (14). Maria Felix beat incumbent Hector Banda Lopez eight votes to six.

The race with the most votes cast to be decided by fewer than 10 votes was the 2020 general election of Iowa’s 2nd Congressional District, when Mariannette Miller-Meeks defeated Rita Hart by six votes out of 393,922 total cast.

The state we’ve covered the most elections decided by fewer than 10 votes in is North Carolina, with 273. Ballotpedia covered every election in North Carolina in 2019, resulting in a larger number of close elections identified. All other figures in this report come from Ballotpedia’s regular coverage scope. The next highest states are New Hampshire (104), Vermont (37), and Texas and Utah (tied with 19 each).