Donald Trump or Kamala Harris? What the latest polls say a few hours before the American election

UNITED STATES – In a mini pocket square. The Americans decide on Tuesday, November 5, whether Kamala Harris or Donald Trump will enter the White House. While the first polling stations opened at 6 a.m. on the east coast this Tuesday, November 5 (12 p.m. in Paris), the two candidates called on voters one last time to go to the polls.

It is impossible to know whether it will take hours or days of counting to decide between the 60-year-old Democratic vice-president and the 78-year-old former Republican leader. Especially since the results of the vote, after a campaign of incredible violence, promise to be extremely close in all « swing states ”, or Key States.

Very close national polls

According to the average of the polls of the New York Times in collaboration with the poll compiler FiveThirtyEight, Kamala Harris has a short lead this Tuesday, November 5 nationally, with 48% of voting intentions against 46.8% for Donald Trump, as you can see in the graph below:

But in the United States, it is not the number of votes collected nationally that counts: for this election, entry to the White House will be played out in seven key states. They alone represent a third of the voters needed to access the White House: 93 out of 270. If we zoom in on these « swing states » decisive, the polls show minimal differences between the two candidates.

Neck to neck in the majority of key states

Kamala Harris was still narrowly ahead in Nevada, North Carolina and Wisconsin, according to polls New York Times/Siena published Sunday November 3. But in the latest surveys published by the New York Times and FiveThirtyEight this Tuesday, Trump is now placed in first position in the Nevada and the North Carolina, however, with a lead of less than one point, within the margin of error. The Democrat is still ahead by 0.8% in the Wisconsinaccording to this survey.

A historic Democratic stronghold, Harris also preserves her one-point lead in the Michigan a few hours before the start of the poll. She also leads 49% to 48% in the Nov. 3 Morning Consult survey.

Pennsylvania, arbiter of the election?

Won by Joe Biden in 2020, the Georgia seems to be reaching out more to Trump, even if his lead is very small. He is ahead of his rival by two points in the Morning Consult poll, while he is ahead by only 0.8 points according to the New York Times/FiveThirtyEight this Monday. In this state, the conservative religious electorate sees Donald Trump as the guarantor of the ban on abortion.

In the Nevadait's a near-draw! Trump gains 0.3 points in the survey New York Times/FiveThirtyEight, but the latest polls The Hill/Emerson College Polling Monday shows a tie at 48%.

Finally, the Pennsylvania could well be the arbiter of this election. And for good reason, the 19 electors available to this state make it de facto the most important of « swing states “. Historically marked by the Democratic vote, Trump was able to seduce the white working class of the “ rust belt » (“rust belt”), a declining industrial region in the northeast of the country.

The polls are almost incapable of deciding between the Republican and the Democrat in this state. They are tied in the poll of New York Times/Siena, while Harris leads by 0.2 points this Tuesday according to FiveThirtyEight. Emerson College has Trump leading at 49%, while YouGov has Harris number one at 48%.

Faced with these extremely tight and constantly changing polls less than 24 hours before the election, it is impossible to know who, Donald Trump or Kamala Harris, will win the ticket for the White House. Regardless of who wins the presidential election, 60 percent of registered voters in a recent NBC News poll believe the United States will remain polarized after the election.

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