Editor’s note, November 6, 2:35 a.m. ET: Donald Trump was expected to win Pennsylvania, making it virtually impossible for Harris to win. Click here to learn more about our 2024 campaign coverage.

The presidential race remains too close to call and will likely once again come down to the Rust Belt trio of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

But the results so far suggest that former President Donald Trump has improved his performance in much of the country compared to 2020, and that if Vice President Kamala Harris still manages to win, it will be by an extremely narrow margin would be.

The two swing states mentioned by a major news outlet early Wednesday are North Carolina and Georgia, both of which Trump won. Harris is unlikely to be able to count on Arizona, the swing state where she had the worst polling, although it will take some time to count the votes there.

If Georgia and Arizona do indeed fall to Trump — and keep in mind they haven’t been called yet, but he looks formidable there — Harris’ path to victory depends on winning all three of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. If she loses just one in this scenario, it’s over for her. (The other remaining swing state, Nevada, will count very slowly, but would be too small to make much of a difference in the Electoral College.)

All three Rust Belt states are still close. Trump leads the current count in all three, although many uncounted votes remain from Democratic-leaning areas.

But especially outside swing states, Trump is on track to do significantly better than in 2020, so a Harris victory scenario depends on the Rust Belt defying an apparent nationwide shift in Trump’s favor.

For example, Biden won Virginia by 10 percent. Late Tuesday, with more than 80 percent of the state’s votes being counted, Harris led Trump by just 1.7 percentage points. That margin will certainly widen as more Democratic precincts are included, but according to the New York Times forecast of uncounted votes, she will likely win somewhere around five points, significantly worse than Biden.

A similar dynamic is at play in many other states, and Trump has gained a lead of about 13 percentage points in Florida. (In 2020, Trump won Florida by just over 3 percentage points.)

Indeed, it seems entirely possible that Trump could win the national popular vote. That will take some time to determine, as it depends on the final margin in slow-counting states like California.

But what really matters is how the Rust Belt states ultimately end up, and we’re still waiting to learn that.

Update, November 6 at 1:07 a.m. ET: This piece, originally published on the evening of November 5, has been updated to include Georgia’s call for Trump.