There's no clear leader in the seven swing states likely to decide the election.
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Election 2024 Swing State Polls: Trump-Harris Race Deadlocked On Election Eve—As Pennsylvania Still Tied (Updated)
Sara Dorn
Forbes Staff
Sara Dorn is a Forbes news reporter who covers politics.
Antonio Pequeño IV
Forbes Staff
Pequeño is a breaking news reporter who covers tech and more.
Topline
The swing state race between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris is effectively a tossup, with the final pre-election polls Sunday and Monday showing the candidates split the seven swing states—and crucial Pennsylvania is virtually tied.
Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally at Madison Square Garden on Sunday. Getty Images
Key Facts
Pennsylvania: It almost couldn’t get any closer—Harris leads by 0.2 points in the
FiveThirtyEight weighted polling average, while the candidates are tied at 48% in both a New York Times/Siena
survey and a
Morning Consult poll, and
Emerson College has Trump up 49%-48%, but
YouGov has Harris leading 48%-46%.
Nevada: This one’s also a tossup—Trump is up by 0.3 points in the
FiveThirtyEight average, but the Times/Siena
poll shows Harris leading 49%-46% and YouGov has Harris up 48%-47%, while Emerson shows a tie at 48%.
Georgia: It’s a razor-thin Trump edge—he has a 0.7-point lead in FiveThirtyEight’s average, and he leads 50%-49% in
Emerson’s polling, 50%-48% in the
Morning Consult survey and 48%-46% in YouGov’s poll, but Harris is ahead 48%-47% according to the Times/Siena poll.
North Carolina: Another narrow Trump advantage—he leads by 0.9 points in
FiveThirtyEight’s data, and is ahead 49%-48% according to Emerson, 49%-47% according to Morning Consult and 48%-47% per YouGov, though Harris leads 48%-46% in the Times/Siena
survey.
Michigan: It’s a margin-of-error Harris edge—she leads by one point in FiveThirtyEight’s data, 50%-48% in Emerson’s polling, 49%-48% in Morning Consult’s survey and 47%-45% according to YouGov, but they’re tied at 47% in the New York Times/Siena
survey.
Wisconsin: Harris has a slight advantage—she’s up by 1.1 points per
FiveThirtyEight, and she leads Trump 48%-45% according to YouGov and 49%-47% per Times/Siena, but they’re tied at 49% in Emerson’s polling, and Morning Consult has a roughly one-point Trump lead.
Arizona: It’s the biggest lead of any swing state and still extremely close—Trump is up 2.2 points in FiveThirtyEight average, and he leads 49%-45% according to Times/Siena, 50%-48% per Emerson and 48%-47% according to YouGov, though Morning Consult found a tie at 48%.
Who’s Favored To Win The Election?
It’s extremely close.
FiveThirtyEight gives Trump a 52% chance of winning, while statistician Nate Silver
put his odds at 50.4%. If the polling averages above are right on the money in all seven swing states, Harris will eke out a narrow electoral victory—but the polls
could easily be off, and even a
small error in either direction could lead to a Trump or Harris landslide.
Is Iowa A Swing State?
Probably not—but a new poll out Saturday has raised some people’s eyebrows. Renowned pollster J. Ann Selzer
found Harris leading Trump 47%-44%, a shocking result given Selzer’s sterling reputation and Iowa’s status as a red state. Most other polls of Iowa show Trump with a significant lead. It’s not clear whether the poll’s findings—which suggested women, independents and older voters have swung sharply against Trump—will be replicated in other swing states like neighboring Wisconsin.
Tangent
Harris became the Democratic nominee after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race on July 21, amid an intraparty revolt in the wake of his debate performance—shifting Democrats’ fortunes dramatically. Prior to the shift, polls consistently found Trump would beat Biden in most battleground states, despite Biden winning six of the seven (with the exception of North Carolina) in the 2020 election.