On 5 November, US citizens will head to the polls to choose their next president in an election that looks to be on a knife-edge.
Donald Trump had expected to go into the election against sitting President Joe Biden, but after Biden dropped out of the race in the summer and gave his backing to Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump found himself facing a tougher path to another term.
However, Harris has not yet taken a decisive polling lead against Trump, either nationally or in the seven swing states expected to decide the outcome, making predicting how the election will fall extremely difficult.
So as things stand, who is in the lead, and who is predicted to win?
According to the latest data, while there are glimmers of hope for Harris, it’s all coming up Trump.
Nationally, the vote is as tight as it can possibly be. Since August, Harris has held a consistent edge in national polling according to most of the major polling aggregators.
According to Euronews Polling models, Harris now holds just a .9% lead nationally. Our numbers are flanked by America’s two most prominent polling aggregators, FiveThirtyEight and RealClearPolitics.
At this point, Harris and her campaign must be hoping that the pollsters have adjusted for their mistakes in the previous two elections.
Most concerning for the Democrats, it was the the RealClearPolitcs model that showed the closest race of all the models heading into election day 2020.
In 2016, when Trump stunned the political polling industry to beat Hillary Clinton, the Democratic Party candidate held a 4.5% lead on October 28.
Even if the pollsters have finally figured out the proper voter projection adjustments and methodologies needed for better accuracy, Harris could still very well be losing this election.
Among the seven most critical swing states — Pennsylvania, Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Nevada and Wisconsin — Trump is either ahead or tied with Harris in all of them.
FiveThirtyEight’s data shows a dead-heat race in four of the seven battleground states, with Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan and Nevada all listed as “tied” by the popular aggregator, which is owned by ABC News. They show Trump ahead by 1+ percent in North Carolina and Georgia, and ahead by 2+% in Arizona.
According to Euronews Polls Centre sources with the campaigns, Arizona appears to be trending solidly for Trump — which would amount to a severe loss for the Democrats after winning the key southwestern state in 2020. The internal campaign data is backed up by recent New York Times/Siena College polling.
Last week, the group released a damning poll for the Democrats that showed Trump up five points in Arizona, buoyed by lower-than-normal Democratic support by young and minority voters in the swing state. (Read more about youth vote trends in Europe and America here).
While FiveThirtyEight still shows an abundance of ties, RCP’s swing state averages all currently favour Trump. However, the leads are marginal at best. Trump currently holds leads of .5% or less in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan.
In 2020, Joe Biden won 306 of the 538 Electoral College votes, winning all of the aforementioned swing states with the exception of North Carolina.
In 2016, Trump won 304 of the 538 Electoral College votes, winning all of the aforementioned swing states with the exception of Nevada.
If the current polling comes to pass, Trump will win 312 Electoral College votes and would be the best Electoral College result for a winner since then-President Barack Obama beat Mitt Romney with 332 Electoral College votes in his re-election campaign.
The betting markets also continue to favour Trump. When we last updated this column, Trump had just jumped back into the lead in the betting markets for the first time since July, with a betting market average showing Trump with a 57.6% chance of winning the election.
As of 28 October, Trump now holds a 61.8% chance of winning the election, according to an average of the gambling projections. Popular betting site, BetOnline, currently gives the former president a 63% chance of winning.
Despite the large volume of bad news coming at the wrong time for the Vice President, the Harris campaign did get some good news over the weekend.
An ABC/Ipsos poll released on Sunday showed Harris with a 4-point advantage over Trump nationally, her best result in an ABC/Ipsos poll since September 13, just days after she outduelled Trump in their only presidential debate.
The ABC/Ipsos poll, a 51-to-47% lead for Harris, included data that is key to overcoming Trump’s momentum and her campaign stagnancy.
According to respondents, those listing the economy or inflation as the single most important issue dropped by 7%. That’s good news for Harris, as Trump has regularly commanded a lead on economic issues. In the ABC poll, Trump led Harris on “handling the economy” by 8% and on “handling inflation” by 7 points.
As in Europe, the economy has been a key motivator for voters. It is a major reason why Harris’ boss, President Biden, suffers from a dismal 36% approval rating. If voters feel the economy and inflation are less of a concern, it could help shift the focus to other issues where she holds advantages, such as “protecting democracy” or “looking out for the middle class”.
Still, the Trump campaign will continue to drive home economic issues in both their speeches and advertising. Just how important the issue is to a plurality of voters could be the reason Harris wins or loses the election next week.
In the famous words of former Bill Clinton campaign strategist James Carville: It’s the economy, stupid.
