MONITORING (SW) – After months of campaigning and literally billions of dollars spent on advertising, the polls in the US presidential election remain on a knife’s edge as American voters go to the polls on 5 November to choose their next president.
US election results have sometimes been declared within hours of the polls closing, but this year’s tight contest could mean a longer wait.
In the seven states that will decide the election, little more than a point separates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. In the state of Pennsylvania, which is likely to tip the balance of the election one side or the other, polling aggregator 538 shows an exact tie, with both candidates at 47.8 per cent, reported 9 News.
But, there are some solid indications the race will go towards Kamala Harris. The biggest and best indicator is the gender gap. A poll from Marist shows Harris leading among women by 15 points. Trump leads among men by four. And current indications are women are turning out in slightly greater numbers than men. She is also picking up slightly more Republican defectors than Trump is picking up Democrats.
The Trump campaign is putting hope in the pre-election polls overestimating Democratic support. In 2016 and 2020, polls showed both Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden winning comfortably. But Clinton ended up losing narrowly, and it took days for Biden’s victory to be clear.
But polls in the 2022 midterm election heavily favoured Republicans.
US presidential election counts are a media event like nothing else on earth, reported ABC. The world’s second-largest democracy organises its elections at the state level, meaning that what we’re actually watching is 50 distinct elections all being held on the same day, together contributing to a single result.
Every state has different rules for how votes are cast, how votes are counted, and when that counting begins on.
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