In an election cycle filled with bombshells and mudslinging, perhaps the most shocking development is what hasn’t changed: the unyielding deadlock between Republican nominee Donald Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris in the final stretch of the 2024 presidential race. With mere days remaining before Americans cast their ballots, an avalanche of polls continues to show the candidates in a statistical tie both nationally and in pivotal battlegrounds.
The remarkable stasis has raised eyebrows among veteran pollsters and analysts. In a bitterly polarized political landscape, with daily twists and turns on the campaign trail, conventional wisdom suggests the numbers should be bouncing around. Instead, they’ve flatlined for weeks on end, begging the question: are the polls capturing voters’ true sentiments, or are risk-averse pollsters playing it too safe?
A Closer Look at the Numbers
Nationally, the latest 10-day average from a Guardian compilation of polls puts Harris at 48%, with Trump trailing by the slimmest of margins at 47%. It’s a mirror image of the picture seven days ago. Zoom in on the battlegrounds, and the story remains the same:
- Pennsylvania: Trump 48%, Harris 48% (19 electoral votes)
- Michigan: Harris 48%, Trump 47% (15 electoral votes)
- Wisconsin: Harris 48%, Trump 47% (10 electoral votes)
- Georgia: Trump 49%, Harris 47% (16 electoral votes)
- Arizona: Trump 49%, Harris 47% (11 electoral votes)
- Nevada: Trump 47.5%, Harris 47% (6 electoral votes)
The consistency is striking given the volatility of past cycles. It’s as if the race has been flash-frozen, impervious to the gaffes, insults, and rallies blaring from the campaign loudspeakers. Even historic early voting numbers, already exceeding 65 million ballots cast, have done little to budge the needle.
The Case of Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania, the proverbial keystone of the blue wall, exemplifies the paradox. Of 59 recent polls in the Keystone State, analyzed by politics professor Josh Clinton and NBC elections director John Lapinski, a staggering 20 showed a perfect 48-48 tie. Another 26 put the margin within a single percentage point.
“This indicates not just an astonishingly tight race, but also an improbably tight race,” Clinton and Lapinski wrote. “Large numbers of surveys would be expected to show a wider variety of opinion, even in a close election, due to the randomness inherent in polling.”
The uniformity raises a red flag: are pollsters, gun-shy after underestimating Trump’s support in 2016 and 2020, now overcompensating by herding toward the middle? “Weighting by partisanship, past vote, or other factors may be flattening out the differences,” the pair suggested, warning that “the results of the election could be unexpectedly different than the razor-close narrative the cluster of state polls and the polling averages suggest.”
Early Voting Tea Leaves
Sifting the early voting data for clues only compounds the uncertainty. Yes, registered Democrats 65 and older are outpacing their Republican counterparts by substantial margins in states like Pennsylvania. According to Politico, about 58% of the senior early vote there is Democratic, versus 35% Republican.
But not all registered Democrats are guaranteed Harris voters, especially given Trump’s inroads with this demographic in 2020. Democratic strategists are trumpeting a 10-20% turnout edge among older adults across Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania – the vaunted blue wall. Will it be enough to withstand Trump’s base on election day? It’s anyone’s guess.
Forecasting Models Shrug
When the polls refuse to budge, surely the vaunted forecasting models can tip the scales? Not so fast. The FiveThirtyEight model, a sophisticated amalgamation of polls and other data, gives Trump the slightest of edges as of Friday: a 53% chance of victory to Harris’s 47%. Crucially, that’s still within the model’s margin of error.
Other models tell a similar tale of ambiguity. With swing states on a knife’s edge, and the electoral college hanging in the balance, the odds vacillate day by day based on incremental shifts in polling aggregates. The forecasters, like the rest of us, can only wait and watch.
The Final Verdict
In the end, all the speculation, all the polling postmortems will be rendered moot when the voters have their say. Donald Trump and Kamala Harris have crisscrossed the country, launched their final advertising blitzes, fired their closing arguments. The pollsters have spoken, or not. Come Tuesday, the only voice left that matters will be the voice of the people. In this election like no other, only one thing is certain: the public will get the last word.
