One Day Left: Neither Candidate Holds Significant Advantage

By tomorrow night, votes for the 2024 presidential election will be in, and we’ll hopefully know who the next president will be. Until then, there doesn’t appear to be a clear favorite, as the latest polls mirror those from the last few weeks: the race is within a point.

The three most important states are also the closest. In Pennsylvania, the latest NYT/Siena poll had the race tied, AtlasIntel had Trump up by two, and Trafalgar had Trump up by one. The RCP Average in Pennsylvania has Trump up just 0.3 points.

Other key states are Wisconsin and Michigan, which also have the race within a point. In Wisconsin, four of the 13 polls in the RCP Average have the race tied, and the latest NYT/Siena poll has Harris up by two points. In Michigan, the latest Marist poll had Harris up by three points; four of the last 14 polls in the RCP Average had the race tied. Harris leads by a similarly small margin in the RCP Average of both states: 0.4 points in Wisconsin and 1.2 in Michigan.

These three states are critical on Tuesday. If Trump can pick up just one of these states while holding the larger Southern swing states – Arizona, Georgia, and North Carolina – he would win. However, if Harris holds all three, she will win.

Even Trump holding the Southern states isn’t guaranteed, though. In North Carolina, he only leads by 1.5 points in the RCP Average, a lead that could very reasonably be overcome on Election Day. Three of the last four polls had Trump up by two to four points, but NYT had Harris up two, giving even more credence to the idea that the state is still up for grabs.

Arizona and Georgia seem more assured, although Trump’s leads in those states remain narrow. In the last three polls in Arizona, Trump led by three to six points, and in the RCP Average, he leads by 2.6. In Georgia, Trump led by one to five points in three of the last four polls, but Harris led by one in the NYT poll, and in the RCP Average, Trump leads by 1.9.

In Nevada, polling variance is higher. The latest Noble Predictive Insights poll has Harris up by one point, the NYT poll had Harris up three, while Susquehanna and AtlasIntel both had Trump up by six. In the RCP Average in Nevada, Trump leads by one point, although with all the variance in polls, the lead remains uncertain.

All of this indicates that Trump’s leads are barely strong enough to count as leads. In the current RCP No Toss-Up Electoral Map, Trump leads 287-251, but that relies on Pennsylvania’s 19 electoral votes, where he only leads by 0.3 points. Even if polls don’t have a bias in either direction, both candidates have a viable path to winning the presidency.

Betting odds have also tightened as polls continue to show the race as extremely close. On Oct. 29, Trump led by 28.9 points in the likelihood of winning, 63.9%-35%. However, the race has since tightened in the RCP Average of Betting Odds to a nine-point lead, 53.9%-44.9%.