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Election day has finally arrived.
Vice President Kamala Harris will face off against Donald Trump on Tuesday when Americans vote in the 2024 election.
More than 80 million votes have already been cast, and voting will close at the end of Tuesday, November 5, when the votes will be counted to determine the next president.
Final national polls still show the two candidates tied. Some have a small lead with Harris, others with a small lead with Trump. The surprise result in Iowa suggests Harris may have a chance to flip the Trump-leaning state, although recent polls in battleground states have shown mixed results.
It’s a close call with nearly 100 electors voting. So what will happen to Harris and Trump today?
The average of the latest national polls compiled by FiveThirtyEight shows Ms. Harris leading Mr. Trump by 0.9 percentage points. On average, Ms. Harris was slightly ahead of Mr. Trump, but that gap has narrowed significantly over the last month. As a result, Tuesday’s outcome is likely to be very tough and difficult to predict in advance.
A surprising new poll released by the Des Moines Register and Mediacom shows Ms. Harris leading Mr. Trump in the state, 47% to 44%.
Trump has performed well in Iowa during both campaigns, so this would be a surprising loss. Iowa, where the Republican Party was certain to win, had 6 electoral votes.
President Trump slammed the poll, calling it “oppression” at a rally on Sunday. “They are repressing and should actually be illegal,” he argued.
It should be noted that the 3-point lead is within the poll’s margin of error.
swing state
In battleground states, final polls by The New York Times and Siena College show mixed results.
In five states, the difference between the two candidates among likely voters is less than two points, and victory is currently uncertain.
In Nevada, Harris holds a three-point lead within the margin of error.
Meanwhile, President Trump built a four-point lead in Arizona, within the margin of error.
The Grand Canyon State has voted Republican in every election this century, except for 2020, which Biden won by just 0.3 percentage points.
It’s not unexpected that the state could return to the red, but Republican Senate candidate Kari Lake is doing poorly in the polls by comparison.
There are 93 electoral votes at stake across seven battleground states.
An analysis of the Electoral College by The Independent confirms that neither candidate can cross the 270-vote line without a battleground state.
Pennsylvania has 19 electoral votes and is a major focus for both the Trump and Harris campaigns in this election. Candidates stop there multiple times each month, and billionaire Elon Musk’s dubious giveaway was aimed at mobilizing Pennsylvania voters.
Pennsylvania flipped to Trump in 2016, but President Biden regained his home state in 2020. Both wins were by just a few percentage points, so all eyes are on the state this year.
nationwide stalemate
Polls released last week showed mixed results, with Harris leading in some places, Trump leading in others, and a tie in others.
However, no poll shows a difference of more than a few points within the margin of error, meaning the candidates are effectively deadlocked.
This could be bad news for Democrats, who have won the popular vote in each of the past eight elections (excluding 2004, when George W. Bush was re-elected).
Such close numbers nationally could alarm the Harris campaign, as Republicans have an advantage in the Electoral College.
demographics
Unlike previous polls that showed Harris with a double-digit lead among young people, a late October HarrisX poll found young voters divided between the two candidates. It was suggested that.
Harris’s strongest support comes from women and non-white Americans, while white and male voters make up a key base for Trump.
The gender gap between the two candidates, with many men supporting Mr. Trump and many women supporting Ms. Harris, does not appear to be as dramatic in this poll.
black voters
Despite little movement in the polls overall, one important group has changed over the past month. It’s a black man under the age of 50.
The latest NAACP poll found that black men are solidifying their support for Harris, after previous polling suggested nearly 3 in 10 would vote for Trump.
According to a poll of 1,000 black voters, support for Harris among men under 50 has increased to 59% from 51% last month.
During the same period, Trump’s approval rating fell from 27% to 21%.
There is some suggestion that black men are leaning toward Trump, but that doesn’t seem to be the case on a large scale. Moreover, this group represents only 6 to 7 percent of voters, according to Pew Research.
But the NAACP poll also shows that 73 percent of all black voters support Harris. This is far from the 90% approval rating for Biden in 2020 and the 93% approval rating for Obama in 2008.
That’s a 10 percentage point increase from the same NAACP poll last month, but it shows some hesitation among key Democratic voters.
Important issues for swing voters
The economy has consistently topped the list of important issues for voters this election.
A Washington Post poll of voters in battleground states also found that health care and threats to democracy topped the list of factors in deciding who is the next president.
Mr. Trump has advocated for overhauling Obamacare, but failed in his attempts during his presidency, and was unable to outline an alternative health care policy during September’s presidential debate.
Immigration ranks high as a deciding factor in this election, with exclusive independent polling showing that candidates’ immigration policies matter greatly to Latino voters.
Interestingly, climate change ranks last on the list of priorities for voters in swing states this year.
Climate change is barely on the agenda this election, with Harris and Walz largely silent on the issue, and Trump and Vance actively denying it.
Recent devastating hurricanes have once again brought climate change to the forefront. However, President Trump incorrectly stated in his Oct. 1 speech that “the Earth has actually gotten a little cooler lately.”
red states
An Emerson College poll last month found Trump leading in red states Texas and Florida.
Trump’s 7- and 8-point leads (respectively) are weaker than predicted earlier this year. However, polls show that Trump (49%) has a higher approval rating among women than Harris (47%) in Florida, a success for the Republican Party, which has attracted a large number of votes from women across the country.
It seems very likely that both states will remain red, but the Senate race is another matter.
In Texas, where former presidential candidate Ted Cruz is defending his Senate seat, Democrat Colin Allred is the de facto tiebreaker by just one point.
This is a concern for Republicans, according to an internal memo discussed below.
Independent voters in Texas favor Mr. Allred (47%) over Mr. Cruz (42%). The presidential race is leaning toward Trump over Harris by two points.
In Florida, incumbent Republican Sen. Rick Scott leads Democrat Debbie Mucarsel-Powell by just four points, with 8% of voters still undecided.
Republicans struggle in Senate elections
Republicans are currently concerned about the Senate race, according to internal polling memos obtained by Politico.
The memo reveals that according to the party’s own polling, Republican candidates are trailing Democrats in seven of the nine key Senate seats, and this data is largely confirmed by polling. are. These seats are in Arizona, Maryland, Michigan, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
“We still have a lot of work to do to maximize our gains in this important Senate race (…) and we must also protect the aspects,” said Stephen Law, author of the memo and director of the Senate Leadership Fund. is writing.
The memo also warns that strongholds such as Nebraska and Texas could be at risk from independent or Democratic candidates.
“We are committed to this fight, so we will not look back with regrets,” the memo concluded.
Who will vote?
A YouGov/Economist poll shows Harris with a three-point lead among registered voters at 47%, to Trump’s 44%. The poll showed Harris with a 25-point lead among young voters under 29.
However, according to the same poll, younger generations are the least likely to vote, with 13 percent of 18-29 year olds surveyed saying they “may vote,” and 3 percent saying they would not vote or I replied that I was still unsure. .
This equates to 16 percent who are unsure about voting or have not voted, higher than any other age group and higher than the average of 9 percent. Only 65% of 18- to 29-year-olds surveyed said they were sure to vote in November.
This compares to 77% of those aged 30 to 44, 85% of those aged 45 to 64, and 94% of those aged 65 and older.
While the numbers may seem dismal and represent a degree of hesitation among young voters, the big picture is that there is far more interest than in 2020.
The same YouGov/Economist poll at this stage of the 2020 presidential election found that nearly a third (27%) of young people are not likely to vote, 10% are “likely” and 17% are “likely” to vote. Indicated that they would “definitely/probably” not vote.
