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As the election day for the US presidency lies on November 5, the leading contenders for the presidency are Vice President Kamala Harris and the former president of the United States, Donald Trump. Initially a simple re-running of the previous year’s election, the war changed significantly in July when sitting president Joe Biden pulled out of the race and instead endorsed Harris as the democratic candidate. Now, the big question looms: the year that America gets its first female president or Trump’s year of re-election?
Polling Overview
In the most recent national polls, the average leading up to the date of this research, Kamala Harris is just ahead of Trump, and this is since her announcement to run at the end of July. The polls showed Harris with a nearly four-point lead by the end of August. Nonetheless, her numbers since then are back down to early September, and even after their only debate on September 10, which as many as 70 million people tuned in to see.
The Three Things to Consider in the Electoral College
Even though national polls offer the opinion of voters all over the country, they offer inaccurate projections of voters’ choices because of the US system of the electoral college. It is the electoral college system that works by giving the states electoral votes that add up to 270 out of 538.
Given the fifty states that are involved, the focus is then put on a few so-called ‘battleground’ or ‘ swing’ states where a particular candidate appears to stand an uneven chance.
Battleground State Dynamics
Today, all the polls from the major swing states cannot be said to be in the hands of any candidate with a clear lead. Moreover, in Arizona, Georgia, and North Carolina, Mr. Trump recently came out slightly ahead, while Ms. Harris is only slightly ahead in Nevada. But Harris is still ahead in Michigan, Pennsylvania, as well as Wisconsin, although the polling gap narrowed in the past few days only.
These three states, however, which were once believed to be reliably Democratic, were three of the five that tipped the election to Trump in 2016. Biden was able to win them back in 2020, and if Harris is to follow the same script, she will stand a good chance of clinching the seat.
Analyzing Polling Data
Polling data presented in this analysis is from site 538 which compiles polls from multiple polling companies and meets high quality standards. These measures increase the reliability of the sample size, the procedure followed in the poll, and the time of the poll.
Trust in Polls
Even in the current polls, which show a proper contest, the prospect is far from easy to predict with certainty. Polling companies were wrong in their predictions of Trump’s votes in the previous two elections in 2016 and 2020. To fill these gaps, firms are slowly changing their processes to more closely match the voter demographics. However, accurate voting forecasts on election day also become more sophisticated.
As the voters are waiting for election day, both campaigns would be carefully watching these events, which could not be scarier for them.
