Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inboxGet our free Inside Washington email
There are less than two weeks until Vice President Kamala Harris goes head-to-head with Donald Trump, as Americans cast their votes in the 2024 election.
Overall, the race has only become tighter; with some new polls showing a thin Trump lead. The outcome of the election is anyone’s game.
In the seven swing states, neither candidate is more than a few points ahead. And in Texas and Florida, new polls show Trump leading by under 10 points; yet in one red state, a key Republican senator is under threat from a Democrat contender.
Several voter registration deadlines have come and gone, but in some states, it’s not too late to sign up to vote.
So how will Harris and Trump fare in November?
The latest average of national polls, collated by FiveThirtyEight, shows Harris with a 1.7-point lead over Trump. On average, Harris has been marginally ahead of Trump, but this gap has closed significantly over the last month.
With just 12 days to go, the polls are telling different stories; some have Trump leading by +3, and others have Harris leading by +4, or somewhere in between.
The overnight poll of 1,512 voters on October 21 found that 51 percent of voters say they support Donald Trump, with 49 percent for Kamala Harris, when including voters who are leaning one way or the other.
Unlike previous polls, which indicate a double-digit lead for Harris among younger generations, this poll suggests that young voters are divided among both candidates.
Women and Americans from non-white backgrounds show the strongest support for Harris, while white and male voters make up Trump’s key base.
The gender gap between both candidates, with more men supporting Trump and women supporting Harris, does not appear as drastic in this poll.
Battleground states
A separate Washington Post/Schar School megapoll (of 5,000 registered voters) has Harris just 1 point ahead of Trump.
Harris has 49 percent of the vote and Trump 48 percent, according to the poll, which was taken in the first two weeks of October.
This close race is also reflected in the swing states.
In the seven key states, neither candidate is leading likely voters outside of the margin of error, even at this late stage in the race.
The two candidates are tied in Nevada, while Trump leads in Arizona and North Carolina, and Harris leads in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
In the battleground states, the poll found that 37 percent of registered voters will “definitely” back Harris, and 37 percent will support Trump.
Meanwhile, 10 percent of swing state voters say they will “probably” support Trump or Harris; meaning that 1 in 5 of those votes are still uncommitted.
Meanwhile, an Emerson College poll found that nearly 1 in 5 voters (17 percent) say they’ve made up their minds on who to vote for in the past month.
These voters were more likely to have decided to vote for Harris (60 percent) than Trump (36 percent). Despite this, Harris’s national lead has gone down, not up.
Key issues for swing voters
The economy has consistently topped the list of key issues for voters in this election.
The Washington Post poll of swing state voters also found that healthcare and threats to democracy topped the list of factors for deciding the next president.
Though Trump has advocated for overhauling Obamacare, with unsuccessful attempts during his presidency, he was unable to outline an alternative healthcare policy at the September presidential debate.
Immigration ranks highly as a deciding factor in this election, and exclusive polling for The Independent shows that the candidates’ immigration policies are of high importance to Latino voters.
Interestingly, climate change ranks lowest on the list of priorities for swing state voters this year.
Climate change has scarcely been on the agenda in this election, with Harris and Walz largely silent on the matter, and Trump-Vance actively perpetrating climate denial.
With the recent devastating hurricanes, climate change was once again brought to the forefront; though Trump incorrectly stated in a speech on October 1 that “the planet has actually gotten a little bit cooler recently.”
Red states
Fresh polls from Emerson College confirm that Trump is leading in the red states of Texas and Florida.
Trump’s 7- and 8-point leads (respectively) are weaker than forecasts earlier this year; yet the poll shows that women are backing Trump (49 percent) more than Harris (47 percent) in Florida, a success for the Republican campaign, which has been hemorrhaging votes from women across the country.
Though it appears very likely that both states will remain red, the Senate races are a different question.
In Texas, where former presidential hopeful Ted Cruz is defending his Senate seat, Democrat Colin Allred is just 1 point behind, leading to a virtual tiebreak.
This has been a point of concern for the GOP, according to an internal memo discussed below.
Texas independent voters favor Allred (47 percent) over Cruz (42 percent). In the presidential race, they’re leaning towards Trump over Harris, with a 2-point margin.
In Florida, incumbent GOP Senator Rick Scott is just 4 points ahead of Democrat Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, with 8 percent of voters still undecided.
GOP troubles in the Senate race
Republicans are now concerned about Senate elections, according to an internal polling memo obtained by Politico.
The memo reveals that, by the Republicans’ own polling, their candidates are trailing behind Democrats in seven out of nine key Senate seats, data that’s largely been confirmed by public polls. Those 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 critical Senate election […] We also have to guard our flanks,” writes the memo’s author Steven Law, head of the Senate Leadership Fund.
The memo also warns that strongholds like Nebraska and Texas could be at risk from independent and Democratic candidates.
“We are putting everything we have into this fight — so there is no looking back with regret,” the memo ends.
Vance wins the VP debate and a popularity boost
The debate between Ohio Senator Vance and Minnesota Governor Walz turned expectations on its head; with betting markets and pre-polls eyeing Walz as the presumed winner.
Not only did Vance “win” the debate, but his performance appears to have done wonders for his public perception, which had been suffering for months.
Our analysis before the debate found that Walz led Trump, Vance, and even Harris in terms of favorability.
Vance received an +11 point boost in favorability from the debate, according to the latest poll from YouGov.
This leaves Vance in a neutral position, while voters had an overall –11 percent unfavorable opinion of him before the debate.
Most interestingly, Vance improved his favorability by an astonishing +19 points among Democrats. Although, overall, he is still at a net –52 percent negative score among this group.
Walz also received a more modest 3-point boost, reaching 15 percent favorability in YouGov’s poll.
Although Walz’s performance was not debate-winning, he is still the most-liked candidate, and he even improved his favorability among independent voters following the debate.
Among his own party, though, he lost approval from 7 percent of voters, still ending up at a net-positive position of 72 percent favorability with Democrats.
Snap polls following the debate show that viewers were split on both candidates and Vance came out a few points ahead.
A CBS/YouGov poll found that 42 percent of viewers considered Vance the debate winner, compared to 41 percent for Walz.
However, Walz did emerge as more in touch with the average American, and more likely to share voters’ vision for America.
Who will vote?
A YouGov/Economist poll has Harris with a three-point lead among registered voters, at 47 percent, and Trump at 44 percent. The poll shows a wide 25-point margin for Harris among young voters, aged 29 and under.
However, according to the same poll, the younger generations are also the least committed to voting, with 13 percent of the 18-29-year-olds surveyed saying they will “maybe” vote, while 3 percent will not vote or are still unsure.
This amounts to 16 percent who are on the fence or not voting, higher than any other age group, and higher than the average of 9 percent. Just 65 percent of the 18 to 29-year-olds polled said they would definitely vote in November.
This is in comparison to 77 percent of 30 to 44-year-olds, 85 percent of 45 to 64-year-olds, and 94 percent of the 65+ age group.
Though the numbers may seem dismal, and represent a degree of hesitancy among younger voters, the overall picture is significantly more engaged than in 2020.
The same YouGov/Economist poll at this stage in the 2020 presidential election showed that nearly a third of young people (27 percent) were not committed to voting in November, with 10 percent “maybe” voting and 17 percent “definitely/probably” not voting.