Close elections

[solarstorm]

There is a thread about Democrats winning in close elections.
However, people have different ideas of how a closeness of an election is defined.
What is your personal defining margin of a close election?

[Wake Me Up When The Hard Border Ends]

In my opinion, a close election is a result where the margin is less than 2 points, and especially a margin of less than 1 point.

[Abraham Reagan]

An election stops being close when it's decided by more than five points.

[anvi]

For a general now, my definition of close would be any election where the winner prevails by between there or four points and gets between 270-290 electoral votes.  But, for all the talk of the closely divided American electorate, only two generals in my lifetime (born 1970) have been close by my standards; Bush-Kerry '04 was close, and Bush-Gore '00 was razor thin.  Carter-Ford '76 ended up, after all the votes were counted, close to being close on the electoral map.

[IceSpear]

I remember during the Scottish independence referendum one of my Unionist friends who lived there was scared because it ended up being "so close". Which was interesting, because by American standards that would've been an ultra mega landslide.

[ElectionsGuy]

For me its about 5 points. I would consider the CO, NC, and AK Senate races as close. But IA, GA? Not really.

[Person Man]

For me its about 5 points. I would consider the CO, NC, and AK Senate races as close. But IA, GA? Not really.

VA and NH?

[Del Tachi]

Anything within 4-or-so points I'd say

[ElectionsGuy]

For me its about 5 points. I would consider the CO, NC, and AK Senate races as close. But IA, GA? Not really.

VA and NH?

Yeah, those are definitely close as well

[angus]

What is your personal defining margin of a close election?

Depends upon the spin.  If I want to emphasize that it was close, then five percent is close enough, but if I want to emphasize the clarity of the vote, then anything over about one percent is not close.

[Boston Bread]

In Canada the margin required for an election to be considered close is less than 5-10% but it depends on where.
Federally a 10% margin is wide (hasn't been achieved by anyone after Chretien, Harper came close) and also would be a landslide in Ontario, where the OLP could in theory win a majority with a 2 point margin. Vote efficiency can make close elections seem like landslides and vice versa. However in the Atlantic, Praries and BC, a double digit polling lead can evaporate right before your very eyes. Popular governments can get up to 60% in some provinces, unthinkable in Ontario or Quebec.
Provincially you often can't tell before the election if it's close because the two latest polls may have a double digit difference in margin between them. I think mistrust of polling has lead to the media treating any election as a tossup without overwhelming evidence to the contrary, though that's common.