Harris and Trump as close as could be as polling opens across the US
Euronews polling shows Harris currently has a national lead of 0.9% — well within a margin of error. Pennsylvania, considered the key state to winning the election, is at a tie.
It’s Tuesday, 5 November, and in just a few hours Americans will start voting. What can we expect? To be frank, anything is possible.
Over the past two weeks, the polls have trended in Republican candidate and former President Donald Trump’s favour.
However, recent polls released over the weekend show new trends swinging back in Democratic candidate and Vice President Kamala Harris’ direction.
The past two elections have been incredibly close. Based on the polling data this year, this election could be even closer.
Latest polling is neck and neck
The national polls are officially the closest they have been since Harris first joined the race in July.
According to the Euronews Polls Average, our models show Harris ahead of Trump nationally by 0.9%, 48.7 to 47.8. The margin is in line with American sources.
Per FiveThirtyEight averages, Harris leads Trump by just 0.9% nationally — the closest margin in their average model since 30 July.
Per RealClearPolitics averages, Trump leads Harris by 0.1% — a virtual tie, showing a slight swing back towards Harris in recent days after Trump managed a 0.5% lead in RCP’s average at this time last week.
But all of this is just the national popular vote. In both 2020 and 2016, the Democratic candidate won the national popular vote. In 2016, despite losing the election, Hillary Clinton bested Trump in the national vote by a 2.1% margin.
Four years later, Biden beat Trump in the national vote by just under 5%, despite the electoral outcome coming down to a few tens of thousands of voters in a handful of swing states.
If the polls are accurate and the historical trends continue, a Harris victory in the national vote of less than 1% could spell doom for her electoral chance. But not necessarily.
A shock poll out of Iowa on Sunday provided hope for the Democrats. The Des Moines Register poll gave Harris a three-point lead in Iowa just days ahead of the election. The shift in the Iowa poll was largely driven by older and independent women voters, who favour Harris over Trump.
The Midwestern state was long considered a pivotal a swing state until the era of Donald Trump began. In recent elections, Trump has managed to turn Iowa into a safe Republican stronghold. While it could be an outlier survey, the Des Moines Register poll could be representative of late shifts among the greater electorate.
The Swing States
In the previous two “Trump” elections, the swing states were much closer than the national vote or pre-election polling. This campaign cycle, the data is more closely aligned with the popular vote trends.
In Pennsylvania, the most important battleground in the 2024 election, as it was in 2016 and 2020, Harris and Trump are in a virtual tie. All aggregation sources show the Pennsylvania race within a 0.3%.
ADVERTISEMENTIn the myriad polls conducted in Pennsylvania over the past two weeks, Trump had a marginal lead in seven, Harris a narrow lead in four, with a virtual draw in seven other polls.
Pennsylvania’s 19 critical electoral votes could go either way, and to the winner will likely go the entire election.
It should be noted that Pennsylvania is one of the slowest states to declare an outcome because of particular state laws and redundancies. It’s likely we will not know the winner of the “Keystone” state until days after the vote.
Michigan and Wisconsin, the Midwest “rust belt” states in the swing state category, both slightly skew towards Harris in the pre-election polling data.
ADVERTISEMENTHarris commands about a 1-point lead in Michigan, and slightly less than that in Wisconsin. If Harris wants to win the win the Presidency, her path starts with claiming these key states.
The same could be said for Donald Trump in Georgia, Arizona and North Carolina. The former president currently holds a one point or greater advantage in all three states. Two come from the south, which is traditionally more conservative.
Trump won North Carolina in both of his previous elections. Losing the “Tar Heel” state would likely mean an electoral loss for Trump. The same can be said of Georgia, which he narrowly lost in 2020 to the shock of many Republicans.
The third state Trump must win to forge a realistic path to the White House is Arizona, the southwest border state. Like many of the other swing states, Trump won Arizona in 2016 before losing it in 2020.
ADVERTISEMENTImmigration is a defining issue on the ballot according to polls, and Trump has a strong advantage over Harris on the key issue.
Of all the battleground states, Nevada has the smallest population and fewest Electoral College votes—just 6. Still, it remains potentially key to winning for both candidates in certain electoral scenarios.
Nevada represents the opposite side of the coin from North Carolina. Trump has never won the desert state, though he came close in 2016 and was
optimistic about winning it in 2020. This year, it looks seriously in-play for the former president, as he leads Harris in Nevada by a slim margin according to most metrics.
ADVERTISEMENTIt all comes down to Pennsylvania
If the election follows the polling, with Pennsylvania the only true “too close to project” state, then buckle up.
A candidate requires 270 electoral college votes to win the election.
If we project Georgia, Arizona, North Carolina and Nevada for Trump and Michigan and Wisconsin for Harris, as the polling suggests, that would give Vice President Harris 251 electoral votes compared to 268 electoral votes for the former president — two shy of victory for Trump.
That means it all comes down to Pennsylvania and its 19 electoral college votes.
ADVERTISEMENTThe polls suggest Trump is trending more strongly in Pennsylvania. The mail-in balloting, however, has been strongly in favour of the Democrats, as it was in 2020.
It also shows a greater percentage of women voters than have been accounted for in pre-election polls. In a race with a potentially historic gender gap, there is data that could show movement in Harris’ direction.
Pennsylvania has been called the one to rule them all. It seems appropriate given the numbers as Americans head to vote.
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