All eyes are turning to seven critical battleground states Tuesday that will determine whether former President Trump or Vice President Harris takes the White House.

Within those states, different counties can offer us early clues of how both parties are faring, including how well Republicans and Democrats are energizing their bases.

Here’s a list of some of the key counties to watch for on election night.

The Atlanta metro counties

Georgia is the first of the seven swing states to close its polls. The state went for Trump in 2016 by 5 percentage points, but President Biden won it in 2020 by roughly a quarter of a percentage point.

One dynamic to watch for, which NBC News national political correspondent Steve Kornacki noted in a recent podcast, is how well Democrats expanded their gains in the Atlanta metro counties — which he dubbed the “blue blob” — and whether Republicans will be able to curb some of its backsliding in the GOP-leaning Cherokee and Forsyth counties.

“Is the blob expanding?” Kornacki asked on “Pod Save America” on Sunday.

“There's one county in that area, it's been moving pretty dramatically towards Democrats, but just missed — Fayette County — the last time around,” he continued. “If the Democrats are flipping that this time around and expanding that........

© The Hill