By Bryce Yazdiya Photo Credit: Getty Images file
With the presidential election approaching, former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris have entered the final stages of their campaign cycles. Both are working to finalize their campaigns. But who has the advantage of being just several days out from November 5th?
According to a recent poll conducted by NBC News, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are deadlocked 48% to 48% among registered voters nationally. This is a change from the same poll conducted in September, which showed Harris with a 5% lead, 49% to 44%, over Donald Trump.
In the last four elections, the Democratic candidate has won the popular vote by an average of 4.4%. However, according to FiveThirtyEight’s national polling average, which takes into account a variety of polls incorporating elements of recency, sample size, etc, Kamala Harris holds a 2% lead on Donald Trump, 48.3% to 46.3%.
Given the fluctuating state of the race, this poll serves as up-to-date information we have on who is ahead nationally.
Winning the popular vote doesn’t always guarantee a candidate will win the election as seen in 2016, when Donald Trump defeated Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, despite Clinton receiving nearly 3 million more votes. Exploring key swing states allows pollsters to gain a better understanding of who may be in the White House come January.
The key swing states considered vital for each candidate to secure the presidency include Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. These states were highly contested in the 2020 election with President Joe Biden winning all but one of these states by an average margin of 1.28%.
According to recent polling, Donald Trump maintains a slight lead over Kamala Harris in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, and Wisconsin with the two candidates tied in Nevada, and Harris holding a lead in Pennsylvania.
Despite Donald Trump holding a lead in most of these key swing states, it is important to note that each of these states’ poll results is within the poll’s margin of error and thus the election result could differ from projections. In all but one of these key swing states the leader is no more than a single 1% ahead of their opponent, the only outlier being Trump’s 3% lead in Arizona.
While recent polling results indicate that former president Donald Trump may have a slight lead over Kamala Harris, the race appears to still be too close to call with many of the key swing states still in virtually a toss-up. Ultimately, we may not truly know who will have the advantage until election day.