Polls Show Tight Race Between Trump and Harris for the White House

More than 78 million American voters had already cast their ballot by Monday morning on the eve of Election Day, as Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump crisscrossed the seven battleground states with their closing remarks.

Harris and Trump are running neck and neck in what is proving to be the tightest presidential race this late in the campaign season. The Vice President is ahead of the former President by 0.9 percentage points in the weighted average of national polls compiled by FiveThirtyEight, at 47.9 percent and 47 percent.

Trump leads Harris by 0.1 percentage point in the RealClearPolitics average of polls, at 48.5 percent and 48.4 percent. It will therefore be the electoral college votes that the nominees garner especially in the seven battleground states not national votes.

The seven battleground states-so named because they can swing either way and not other states which have been solidly Democratic and Republican-are Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona, and Nevada. It is also a close competition between Harris and Trump within these states.

HARRIS LAGS TRUMP BY A FEW POINTS in Michigan (47.9 percent to 47.1 percent), Wisconsin (48.2 percent to 47.3 percent), and is tied with Trump in Pennsylvania (47.7 percent to 47.9 percent), but trails Trump in North Carolina (47.2 percent to 48.4 percent), Georgia (47.2 percent to 48.4 percent), Arizona (46.5 percent to 49 percent), and Nevada (47.3 percent to 47.8 percent).

But serious doubts have been raised on polls in the recent years. For instance, a comprehensive survey by the American Association for Public Opinion Research found that the national polls for the 2020 presidential contest between Trump and Joe Biden were called the least accurate in 40 years. The report further states that the state polls for the election were also called the least accurate for at least two decades. Moreover, the polls had completely messed up the 2016 contest between Trump and Clinton as they did not consider the educational divide and undervalued Trump. No reason has been mentioned in the report for the 2020 debacle.