The 2024 presidential election cycle will be the first in at least 60 years that no candidate has led by 5 points or more in the polls for more than three weeks, according to an analysis by Harry EntenThat margin has existed in every campaign since 1964, Enten explained, except this one—even when President Joe Biden still running
“The race is as close as I’ve ever seen it,” Enten wrote on X. “The bottom line is this election is in two months.”
Several national and battleground state polls show Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump either equal or within a few percent of each other—the results appear to be well within the margin of error.
Pollsters have had a particularly chaotic campaign to keep track of this election. From Biden’s tense debate performance in June to the failed assassination attempt on Trump in July, followed by Biden’s withdrawal from the race and Harris’s energetic and fast-paced summer campaign, it seems like every week has brought another unprecedented event for Americans to consider.
Additionally, Trump’s presence on the ballot could negatively impact the reliability of polling, according to a Pew Research Center report. “Compared to other elections over the past 20 years, polls are less accurate when Donald Trump is on the ballot,” Pew’s vice president said. Courtney Kennedy and senior survey advisor Scott Keeter wrote.
This discrepancy, they found, could be due to two reasons. First, pollsters often use past turnout to predict who will vote in upcoming races, and “research has found that Trump is popular with people who tend not to vote in midterms but do vote for him in presidential election years.” Second, Kennedy and Keeter note, “Republicans in the Trump era are slightly less likely to participate in polls than Democrats.”
In addition to documenting a historically close race, pollsters are tracking what issues are driving voter turnout this year.
An August Economist/YouGov poll of 1,567 US adults found that “Inflation/prices” was the top issue for voters, at 24%, followed by “Jobs and the economy” at 13% and “Immigration” at 12%.
One set New York Times/The Siena College poll of registered voters in seven battleground states conducted August 6-15 found that “For women under 45, abortion has surpassed the economy to become the most important issue for their vote.”
Throughout the 2024 campaign cycle, one thing has remained clear: this election could be decided by just a few key battleground states.
Democratic voters in Omaha, Nebraska, have placed signs in their yards with a single blue dot, symbolizing Harris’s potential strength in a red state. Nebraska is one of only two states that awards electoral votes based on congressional districts, rather than the winner of the statewide vote.
“For all the paths for Harris and Trump to the White House,” CNN Jeff Zeleny “The race for 270 electoral votes could be fought in Nebraska’s sprawling 2nd District, which includes Omaha and parts of two neighboring counties and has many similarities to suburbs across the country,” writes the New York Times.
In addition to the Omaha blue dot, final votes in seven states—Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada—could help either Trump or Harris reach the 270 votes needed to win.
In the event of an Electoral College tie, a centuries-old constitutional mechanism could decide the election. If Harris and Trump both win 269 Electoral College votes, the House of Representatives would decide the election, under the 12th Amendment—something that hasn’t happened since 1824.
If sent to the House, each state delegation would be allotted one vote. Currently, Republicans control 26 House delegations; Democrats control 22, and two others are tied. That means Trump could lose the popular vote—as he did in his two previous executive bids—and tie in the general election, and still win the White House.
A close election could exacerbate widespread right-wing theories of voter fraud—and risk reigniting Trump’s Big Lie of 2020, the baseless claim that the election was stolen from Biden.
