Harris leads Trump in votes, but it may not be enough

Just over two weeks left until November 5th. Elections in the United States will be decided by very fair margins, to the extent that the paradox could arise that Kamala Harris wins the popular vote and loses the White House if Donald Trump wins the key states that put him in college. Give majority. Election.

The electoral college is composed of 538 representatives. To win, a candidate must receive at least 270 votes from the Electoral College. The figure of 538 is not random and is equal to the number of members of the House of Representatives (435) and the number of Senators (100) plus three representatives from Washington DC, which has no representatives in either house.

Delegates are distributed by state and the winning party in each region takes the full number of delegates assigned to that state, except in Maine (4) and Nebraska (3), where the system is proportional. With these two exceptions, it doesn’t matter whether you win a state by one ballot or a million ballots: if you win, you get all the electoral votes in that state, and the loser gets all the votes in that state. Nothing is found.

At present, the polls are presenting a very tough scenario, in which Kamala Harris may have a slight advantage. In the following graph you can see how they are based on an average of surveys published by FiveThirtyEight, which aggregates different surveys and gives different weights to each polling house according to date, sample size, methodology, transparency or bias. Is.

Harris leads Trump by just two points, in a race in which Biden’s comeback has been decisive: Harris is still leading in the polls since joining the presidential race in relation to the presidency, however. The gap has narrowed in the last week.

Donald Trump, on his part, distances himself from Kamala Harris in Arizona and does the same in two contested states, Georgia and North Carolina.

Right in Arizona, the Republican has managed to upset the polls and is ahead of Harris. In 2020, Joe Biden won this state with 49.4% of the votes and a margin of about 10,000 votes with Trump.

The following map shows the victory forecast for each candidate according to the FiveThirtyEight model, which takes into account not only polls but also each state’s historical vote, economic and social data to simulate each candidate’s chances of victory. Takes into account. According to this model, victory in the 2024 elections will be decided in seven key states, which are currently undecided.

The other two battleground states where Trump appears to be ahead are Georgia and North Carolina. In 2020, Biden managed to win Georgia by nearly 11,000 votes, 49.5% compared to 49.2% for the Republican.

In North Carolina, despite the fact that Trump is leading, the possibility of a change of color this November 5 has not been ruled out. In 2020, Republicans managed to win by about 75,000 votes.

The following table shows a summary of how the race is in the elections in the seven states where the fight is tightest and will decide the 2024 elections in the United States.

Arizona, Georgia, and North Carolina are the three swing states. There is a possibility that Harris could win the White House without him, although that would be a very difficult scenario. Georgia and North Carolina are more important for Trump. For now, Pennsylvania is being seen as the place where the last word will be and Harris is leading by a small margin in this state.