Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party candidate, and Donald Trump of the Republican party remained neck and neck as the clock ticked towards the November 5 election date, with analysts predicting that the election will come down to razor-thin margins in a few key swing states.
According to FiveThirtyEight’s daily election poll tracker, Harris, 59, held a narrow lead in the national polls, with a 1.4 percentage point advantage with about a week to the polls. This was a slight dip from the previous week when she was ahead by 1.7 percentage points.
Seven key swing states were tipped to decide the results of the election. Both campaigns had put their focus and efforts there. These included Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, Michigan, Arizona, Wisconsin and Nevada.
According to FiveThirtyEight’s daily poll tracker, Harris had a narrow lead in Michigan with about a week to the polls while Trump, 78, held a slight edge in Pennsylvania and Nevada. He also enjoyed a more substantial lead in North Carolina, Arizona and Georgia. And in Wisconsin, not even a tenth of a percentage point separated the two.
In all seven states, the candidates were within two points of each other, well within the polls’ margins of error, leaving each state a toss-up just days before the final vote.
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Trump accepted the GOP nomination on July 18. He is the subject of a number of federal and state investigations – including four indictments and one guilty verdict – but has derided the probes as “witch hunts” and pledged to continue his run. Trump still commands a significant and enthusiastic base of supporters.
But as she has repeatedly struggled to define her role in the administration, many in the party have viewed her as a potential liability. Further weighing her down were low approval ratings that had been only slightly higher than Biden’s. Despite this, she has managed to make a name for herself as the administration’s leading voice for abortion rights and women’s rights.
And since formally accepting the nomination at the DNC in August, Harris has seen strong poll numbers – especially compared to how Biden was faring – and got generally positive ratings for her debate performance against Trump.
The 2024 presidential election will be the 60th in US history. Voters in each state and the District of Columbia will choose electors to the Electoral College, who will then elect a president and vice president for a term of four years.
The incumbent, President Joe Biden, a member of the Democratic Party, initially ran for re-election and became the party’s presumptive nominee, facing little opposition. However, Biden’s performance in the presidential debate held in June 2024 intensified concerns about his age and health, and led to calls within his party for him to leave the race.
Although he was initially adamant he would remain in the race, Biden withdrew on July 21 and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, who became the party’s nominee on August 5. Harris selected Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota, as her running mate.
Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump, a member of the Republican Party, is running for re-election for a second, non-consecutive term, after losing to Biden in 2020. Other than Trump, Nikki Haley, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and a former governor of South Carolina, received significant support during the Republican Party’s primaries.
Trump was nominated during the 2024 Republican National Convention along with his running mate, Ohio senator JD Vance.
Other fringe candidates include 74-year-old Jill Stein. Running on a self-described “pro-worker, anti-war, climate action agenda,” Stein is making her third bid for the White House.
A Harvard-educated physician from Massachusetts, she ran as the Green Party candidate in 2012 and 2016. She also ran for governor of Massachusetts in 2002 and 2010 but has never been elected to office.
Stein drew just one per cent of the popular vote in 2016, yet some Democrats insist that her presence in the race drew support from Hillary Clinton in states that the Democratic nominee lost by razor-thin margins to Trump.
Cornel West, an African-American, is running as an independent. A longtime activist whose work centers on race and class, West entered the presidential race under the banner of the People’s Party, a third-party, leftist group but eventually chose to run as an independent.
West is a public intellectual and socialist who has been active in Democratic politics for decades, and backed Sen. Bernie Sanders’ Democratic presidential primary runs in 2016 and 2020.
“I enter in the quest for truth, I enter in the quest for justice, and the presidency is just one vehicle to pursue that truth and justice – something I’ve been trying to do all my life,” West, 71, said in an announcement video on June 5.
Chase Oliver, 39, is the youngest on the ballot. After two unsuccessful bids to represent Georgia in the House of Representatives and Senate, Oliver announced in April 2023 that he was aiming higher and running for president.
He is campaigning on the Libertarian Party platform focused on limiting government overreach, lowering federal spending, expanding gun rights and reforming the immigration system. Oliver started his political activism by opposing the Iraq War in the early 2000s.
He was officially selected as the Libertarian nominee at the party’s national convention on May 26. Mike ter Maat, an economist, is the Libertarian Party’s vice presidential nominee.
Nineteen candidates, including President Joe Biden, dropped out of the race at various points.
— Additional reporting by multiple agencies.
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