US chooses between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump with no clear favorite

November 5, 2024, has arrived loaded with uncertainty. As Americans who have not yet voted head to the polls, there are only questions. The main one: who will win? The second: when will the result be announced? The most important election in recent history for the future of the United States, and the world, does not have a clear favorite. The polls place Donald Trump and Kamala Harris almost neck-and-neck in the swing states that will tip the balance one way or the other. If the result is as close as the polls indicate — and that is another unknown — the vote count could last many days in a divided and tense country, while the world waits in suspense to find out who will hold the keys to the White House for the next four years.

The U.S. has witnessed some heart-stopping presidential elections in recent history. In 2000, the media mistakenly proclaimed Al Gore president over George W. Bush on election night, only to later rectify the error. Hours later, Bill Clinton’s vice president congratulated his rival, only to retract his statement. In the end, after a recount in Florida aborted by the Supreme Court in December, Bush won the state by a margin of 537 votes. The most recent election, in November 2020, was decided by a margin of 44,000 votes in three of the key states, and Joe Biden was not able to declare victory until Saturday, four days after the election date.

It is unlikely that this election will be as close as those when push comes to shove, but what is closer than ever in recent history are the polls. In all recent elections, on voting day there has been a clear favorite (although, as Hillary Clinton knows only too well, that does not guarantee victory). This time, it seems to be a toss-up. The polls give Harris a slight lead in the popular vote, but it remains unclear if that will be enough to tip the balance in the decisive states.

Multiple combinations, nothing guaranteed

The election will essentially be decided in seven states, home to approximately 15% of the U.S. population of 335 million, and which hold 93 votes in the Electoral College. The most important is Pennsylvania (19 votes), followed by Georgia (16) and North Carolina (16), Michigan (15), Arizona (11), Wisconsin (10), and Nevada (6). In 2016, Trump won all but Nevada. In 2020, Biden won all but one: North Carolina.

There are many possible combinations. With nothing guaranteed, Harris appears to have a slim lead in Wisconsin and Michigan, while Trump is slightly ahead in Arizona, North Carolina, and Georgia. That scenario would leave everything in the hands of Pennsylvania, where both are tied, regardless of what happens in Nevada.

The two candidates campaigned Monday in the most decisive of the key states. Harris scheduled five events in one day, including one in Scranton, Joe Biden’s birthplace, two in towns with a greater Latino vote (Allentown and Reading), another in the state’s industrial capital (Pittsburgh), and the last in its largest city (Philadelphia). Trump decided to open the last day in Raleigh (North Carolina) and close it in Warren (Michigan), but with two rallies in between in Pennsylvania (in Reading and Pittsburgh).

Polls underestimated Trump in 2016 and 2020. The question is whether that will be repeated this year or, on the contrary, by adjusting their models, the polling firms have ended up favoring the former president. The big demographic surprise of the last few days has been a poll by the Des Moines Register, the main newspaper in Iowa, a state that Trump believed he had in his pocket. It gives Harris a 47% to 44% lead in voting intention among likely voters. It also points to enormous support for the Democrat among women not registered as Republicans or Democrats. Among these independent voters, the poll gives her a 28-point lead in Iowa, 57% to 29%. Beyond the fact that the poll leaves a state with six votes in the Electoral College that had gone under the radar until now up in the air, its data by population groups are very encouraging for the vice president.

Harris has tried to court centrist voters with calls for unity. She promises to be a president for all Americans, who will govern with common sense and bring her political rivals to the table. Trump, on the other hand, has embraced violent, xenophobic, and extremist rhetoric, raising the specter of electoral fraud and painting a bleak and apocalyptic picture of the U.S., to which he presents himself as the only solution. He seems to prefer the course of reassuring his faithful supporters and mobilizing new voters who are dissatisfied with the direction of the country.

Such close elections boost participation, which is usually low. According to data from the U.S. Census, in the 2020 presidential election, which broke records for the last few decades, 66.8% of citizens aged over 18 voted. Early voting is estimated at 83 million people, including those who voted in person and those who voted by mail, although millions more ballots may still arrive. In any case, it seems unlikely that the record of 101.45 million in 2020, at the height of the pandemic, will be surpassed. Early voting shows a strong mobilization of voters registered as Republicans, although this seems to be due more to a change of habits — Trump and his followers discouraged the practice in 2020 but have changed tack in this campaign — than to a substantive electoral transfer.

Long night

It will be a very long election night. The counting of votes in some states may take days if the result is extremely close, as was the case in 2020. It is also possible that a surprise could occur and the balance could tip quickly one way or the other. Uncertainty is the only thing that is guaranteed.

The ballot box will decide whether Harris becomes the first woman to occupy the Oval Office since the founding of the United States, or whether Trump manages to regain the presidency after having lost it, something that has only happened once previously, in 1892, with Grover Cleveland. In either outcome, the election will leave a divided country in its wake. The result will determine not only the future of U.S. democracy, but also the geopolitical chessboard (including the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, the competition for hegemony with China, and Washington’s relationship with the EU) and the future of world trade. “Voting is the oxygen of democracy,” said Democratic Senator Ted Kennedy. The world awaits the result with bated breath.

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