Harris leads her opponent nationally by just 1.5 points

US Election: According to surveys, this might be one of the tightest contests in contemporary history, with just one week till the election.

FiveThirtyEight’s poll tracker indicates that Harris and Trump are still essentially deadlocked, with Harris leading her opponent by only 1.5 points nationally—an advantage that is inside the margin of error.

In the meantime, Harris and Trump were deadlocked at 48 percent each in the most recent New York Times/Siena College survey, which was taken between October 20 and 23. In the pollster’s most recent survey, which was conducted between September 29 and October 6, Harris was 3 points ahead, a lead that was barely outside the poll’s plus or minus 2.4-point margin of error.

The swing states had equally tight polls. In Michigan, Harris leads by a narrow 0.7 points, but in Wisconsin, she is level with Trump, according to 538’s tracker. She had a 2.4-point lead in both a month ago. In Georgia, Arizona, and North Carolina, Trump leads by 1.2 to 1.8 points. In Pennsylvania and Nevada, where Harris had been leading since rising to the top of the Democratic ticket, he is also ahead by 0.3 and 0.2 points, respectively.

The contest is still up for grabs despite the close polling. According to Jon Parker, senior professor in American studies at Keele University in the United Kingdom, “the race has gone from almost a toss-up to definitely a toss-up,” he told CNN last week. This, he said, “does not suggest that either campaign is winning or losing.”

Given how close the race is, Parker said, it “will come down to turnout and whose voters are the most committed on election day.”

According to polling, registered Republicans and Democrats are similarly motivated before the election. Trump had a tiny enthusiasm edge, according to a recent YouGov/Economist poll carried out from October 19–22: 54% of Trump supporters said they were “extremely enthusiastic” about their vote, while another 19% said they were “very enthusiastic.” 47 percent of Harris’s fans described themselves as “extremely enthusiastic,” and 23 percent described themselves as “very enthusiastic.”

According to a different Harris X survey of 1,622 potential voters conducted between October 9 and 11, Trump supporters are more driven by personal support for him than by hostility to Harris. According to this survey, 80% of those who planned to vote for Trump said they were voting for him, while just 20% said they were voting against Harris. Of those who voted for Harris, 75% thought their vote was in favor of her, and 25% thought it was against Trump.

If Harris’s supporters do not vote, the polls, which indicate a tiny lead for Trump, might mean problems for her given the thin margin between the two candidates.

However, according to Thomas Gift, an associate professor of political science at the UCL School of Public Policy, persuading voters who aren’t yet making up their minds could be the secret to the Harris campaign’s success. “Ultimately, the election will be determined as much by which coalitions turn out to cast their ballot as by last-minute shifts among a shrinking pool of undecided voters,” Gift said in a media report. Just 3% of voters nationwide are still unsure, according to the most recent Angus Reid survey, which was taken between October 23 and 27.

Gift cautioned that the majority of voters had already made up their views. “The number of truly undecided voters is small and vanishing,” he said. “The likelihood is that Americans will not cast ballots at all if they are still undecided about their choice. In addition to being put off by Trump’s demeanor and behavior, many of these unsure voters find it impossible to see endorsing Harris’s proposals.

However, given how tight the election is, J. Wesley Leckrone, a political science professor at Widener University, told a media report that Trump and Harris should continue to concentrate on encouraging indecisive people to cast ballots on November 5.

The number of voters who are still uncertain is quite low, and those who are often those who don’t give politics much thought and have little knowledge of it. “More important to them than deciding which candidate to support is whether they will vote at all,” Leckrone said.

“Whether or not these people turn out on election day and how well each party encourages these unsure voters to cast ballots will have a significant impact on the result of the election. These voters often cast ballots that are comparable to those cast in prior elections. Therefore, it’s more important to bring people to the polls than it is to influence their vote choice,” he said.

Undecided voters might help Harris win the race, according to Audrey Hayes, an associate professor of political science at the University of Georgia. This is especially true in Georgia, a vital swing state.

“If we use the data from the most recent Atlanta Journal Constitution poll, undecideds (from a pool of likely voters surveyed) made up 8.2 percent of respondents,” she said to a media report.

“More of them were older, educated, Black, millennial, and male. “With the exception of men, who will probably split a little more toward Trump, if I were a betting person, I would say that after considering all of that data, my best guess would be that they would tilt a bit more toward Harris,” she said. Black voters have generally tended to lean more Democratic, as do younger and college-educated voters.

Another piece of information is that the majority of those expressing indecision identify as Democrats or Independents. I think it means they’ll probably split more strongly with Harris,” she added.

But since Harris hasn’t been able to establish her identity apart from President Biden, Gift is concerned that her rhetoric hasn’t resonated with swing or undecided voters.

“Harris’s last attempt to sway voters by emphasizing that democracy is on the line in ’24 looks like a bad plan. Only a small percentage of Americans believe democracy is the most important topic in this election, despite the fact that many people feel it is in danger,” he stated.

“During the most part, Harris has not made clear what her top policy goal is during the first 100 days of her presidency. Additionally, she hasn’t clarified how she will vary from Joe Biden’s strategy.

“Those missteps could cost her in trying to lock in the support of left-leaning moderates (or even some disillusioned Republicans) who want a reason to come out to the polls other than the fact that Harris isn’t Trump.”