This is what the recent US polls look like.
Presidential Campaign in the USA: On November 5th, the election will take place to decide who succeeds Joe Biden and takes over power in the United States. How is Donald Trump performing in the polls? Can Kamala Harris maintain her early lead?
The race for the presidency in the USA is in full swing. The vote on November 5th is not only about who will move into the White House for the next four years: the current Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris or the Republican and former President Donald Trump. At the same time, the future of the world's most influential democracy is at stake.
How are Harris and Trump currently faring in public opinion polls? A look at the ntv.de infographic of averaged national poll results shows the daily developments:
The results of numerous US polls - here in the collective evaluation of the analysis house RealClearPolitics - are the most important indicator of the political mood in the country. Daily, pollsters in the USA publish new interim results based on different survey methods, own questions, or limited time frames.
All major TV stations and media outlets publish their own national data. Behind the scenes, dozens of polling institutes continuously examine every trend and swing in public opinion. Which statements resonate well or poorly with voters in each camp?
Additionally, approval ratings are analyzed among different social classes, age groups, genders, ethnicities, and in rural and urban populations. Campaign strategists in the headquarters of both parties closely watch every new development.
How can a reliable trend be identified amidst the multitude of polls? From a European perspective, a look at the evaluation of the collected poll results is sufficient. The independent US provider "RealClearPolitics", for example, currently analyzes over 70 surveys on the US election campaign using a "Poll of Polls" approach.
Included are not only the data from renowned polling institutes like Ipsos, Harvard CAPS, or Rasmussen, but also the estimates of various media outlets from CNN or NBC to Forbes or "Fox News", from the "New York Times" to the "Washington Post". The idea is that any conscious or unconscious biases due to political leanings of the commissioners are balanced out by the broad selection.
Weighted by criteria such as methodology, survey period, and participant number, different snapshots emerge, which are combined in the collective evaluation. Ultimately, the mood in the so-called Swing States - those states where neither Republicans nor Democrats have a clear majority - could be decisive.
Despite all the effort, the poll results do not allow for a reliable prediction. The voting behavior of the voters on election day remains crucial - and anything can happen until then. Additionally, the peculiarities of the US electoral system come into play. US voters only indirectly decide whether Trump or Harris will become president.
The cast votes only determine the composition of the Electoral College, which then elects the president. In 48 of the 50 states, this works through a fixed mandate: the candidate who secures the majority receives all the electoral votes of the respective state.
An Example: If a candidate wins in Florida with 50.1% of the votes, they receive all 29 of the state's electoral votes, leaving the other candidates with none, regardless of how many people voted for them. Political scientists refer to this as the "winner takes all" principle. Only in the smaller states of Nebraska and Maine are electoral votes allocated proportionally based on smaller congressional districts.
This system can result in a candidate winning the presidency despite receiving fewer total votes ("popular vote") than their opponent. In 2016, Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton received nearly 2.9 million more votes than Donald Trump, but he still became president.
To become president, a candidate must win at least 270 electoral votes nationwide. The number of electoral votes per state corresponds to the number of senators and congressional representatives it sends and is roughly proportional to its population. This means that votes from smaller states carry more weight: in Wyoming, one electoral vote represented 135,000 voters in the last election, compared to 411,000 in California.
Electoral votes are officially cast 41 days after the presidential election, which was December 14 in 2020. The official results are formally announced in early January in Congress. Following the 2020 election, this event was marked by a storming of the Capitol by violent Trump supporters. The inauguration of the next president or president-elect is scheduled for January 20, 2025.
The current political landscape in the USA is vividly depicted in the poll results, with President Trump and Vice President Harris leading the race. However, I'm not going to make any predictions based on these numbers, as the final outcome on election day is unpredictable.
