On 5 November 2024, millions of Americans will head to the polls to choose between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump for president of the United States. The two candidates have offered starkly different visions for the future of the nation. As the election enters the final stretch, the Guardian US is averaging national and state polls to see how the two candidates are faring.
Latest polls
Polling average over a moving 10-day period
Guardian graphic. Source: Analysis of polls gathered by 538.
Latest analysis: Nationally, Harris has a one-point advantage, 48% to 47%, over her Republican opponent, virtually identical to last week. Such an advantage is well with the margin of errors of most polls. The battleground states, too, remain in a dead heat.
But in a fractured political landscape that has featured threats of retribution from Trump, accusations of fascism and racism from Harris, and warnings that democracy itself is on the ballot, the bigger picture – that uniformity, over a prolonged period – has seasoned observers scratching their heads.
Polling average over a moving 10-day period. Each circle represents an individual poll result and is sized by 538’s pollster rating
Notes on data
To calculate our polling averages, Guardian US took a combination of head-to-head and multi-candidate polls and calculated a rolling 10-day average for each candidate. Our tracker uses polls gathered by 538 and filters out lower-quality pollsters for national polls. Our state polling averages use a lower quality threshold for inclusion due to the small numbers of state polls. If there were no polls over the the 10-day period, we leave the average blank. On 11 Oct Guardian US began rounding averages to the nearest whole number to better reflect the lack of certainty in the polling figures.
Polling averages capture how the race stands at a particular moment in time and are likely to change as the election gets closer. Averages from states with small numbers of polls are also more susceptible to errors and biases. Our averages are an estimate of the support that the candidates have in key swing states and on the national stage. The election is decided by the electoral college, so these averages should not be taken as a likelihood of winning the election in November.
Donald Trump and Kamala Harris held competing rallies across Pennsylvania on Monday, making their final pitches in the key swing state as polls indicate an extremely close contest.
The two candidates laid out starkly contrasting visions for America’s future on the eve of election day. Trump rambled through dark and dystopian speeches painting migrants as dangerous criminals while also launching personal attacks on a number of high-profile Democratic women. Harris delivered a more positive closing argument, shifting focus away from the threat posed by the ex-president, who is not mentioned in her final ad, and insisting “we all have so much more in common than what separates us”.
Trump, at times appearing hoarse and low-energy, scheduled four rallies on Monday: one in Raleigh, North Carolina, two in Pennsylvania and a late-evening event in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He has continued to boast about his crowd sizes, but reports suggest some of his final events have been plagued by empty seats and early departures from audience members during his lengthy, meandering speeches.
Harris stayed in Pennsylvania with several rallies and events in the critical state that could decide the election. Lady Gaga, Oprah Winfrey, Ricky Martin and other celebrities were slated to appear at her final event at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where the famous steps from the Rocky movie were lit up blue and a large “President for All” banner was displayed.
As the Harris campaign and its surrogates have continued to appeal to female voters, Trump revived familiar insults against notable women, sometimes with violent language.
In North Carolina, he attacked former first lady Michelle Obama, saying: “She hit me the other day. I was going to say to my people, am I allowed to hit her now? They said, take it easy, sir.” He also suggested the Democratic congresswoman Nancy Pelosi should have been jailed for ripping up a copy of his 2020 State of the Union address: “She’s a bad, sick woman, she’s crazy as a bedbug.”
And Trump repeated his line that Harris is a “low IQ individual”, followed by an incoherent tangent seemingly imagining her struggling to sleep: “I don’t want to have her say, You know, I had an idea last night while I was sleeping, turning, tossing, sweating,” he said, without finishing the sentence.
Trump leaned into his taunts as he continues to face scrutiny over his recent comment suggesting that Liz Cheney, the former GOP congresswoman and a Harris supporter, should face rifles “shooting at her”. Appearing on ABC’s The View on Monday, Cheney said, “Women are going to save the day” on Tuesday.
In North Carolina, Trump also threatened the newly elected president of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, suggesting he would impose tariffs on all Mexican goods “if they don’t stop this onslaught of criminals and drugs” – part of his trade proposals that economists have warned could significantly raise costs for US consumers.
Later in Reading, Pennsylvania, Trump fantasized about wrestlers who could “take the migrants in a fight”. He repeated racist tropes about immigrants and affirmed his threat of unprecedented mass deportations, saying Tuesday would be “liberation day”. He falsely suggested Democrats support “open borders” so undocumented people can fraudulently vote.
He later spoke of the boxer Mike Tyson and seemingly in response to a comment from an audience member, suggested Tyson take on the vice-president: “That guy could fight … Put Mike in the ring with Kamala.”
Trump in Raleigh, North Carolina. Photograph: Jonathan Drake/Reuters
At around the same time, Harris was rallying in Allentown, roughly 40 miles away, critiquing Trumpism without directly naming her opponent: “America is ready for a new way forward, where we see our fellow American not as an enemy but as a neighbor. We are ready for a president who understands that the true measure of the strength of the leader is not based on who you beat down. It is based on who you lift up.”
Later, Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, earned loud applause at a rally in Georgia, when he attacked Harris by bringing up Joe Biden’s recent gaffe, in which he appeared to call Trump supporters “garbage”.
“In two days, we are going to take out the trash in Washington DC, and the trash is named is Kamala Harris,” said the Ohio senator, in a remark that was condemned by Democrats and pundits.
The back-and-forth trash talking originated with a comedian’s racist joke at Trump’s recent New York rally, calling Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage”, a comment that many Harris surrogates cited on Monday while appealing to Puerto Rican voters in Pennsylvania.
The vice-president also stopped at a Puerto Rican restaurant with Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and directly joined canvassing in a residential area in Reading, telling voters at one home: “I wanted to go door-knocking!”
By his evening rally in Pittsburgh, Trump returned to his crowd size obsession, making false claims about low turnout at Harris’s nearby rally that hadn’t yet begun. He then mocked Beyoncé, who rallied for Harris in Texas: “Everyone’s expecting a couple songs and there were no songs. There was no happiness.” He added, “We don’t need a star. I never had a star.”
The final scramble to turn out voters comes as Trump continues to make false claims about voter fraud, raising fears about how he might challenge the results if Harris wins. In a call with reporters on Monday, the Harris campaign said it was prepared to combat any efforts by Trump to discredit the outcome.
“We have hundreds of lawyers across the country ready to protect election results against any challenge that Trump might bring,” said Dana Remus, a senior campaign adviser and outside counsel. “This will not be the fastest process, but the law and the facts are on our side.”
Legal challenges were designed to undermine faith in the electoral process, she added: “Keep in mind that the volume of cases does not equate to a volume of legitimate concerns. In fact, it just shows how desperate they’re becoming.”
There are also growing fears that political violence will escalate on election day and beyond, as misinformation and conspiracy theories are expected to spread while counting is under way. Election officials in one Nevada county said on Monday that threats have become so severe that polling places have installed “panic buttons” to automatically call 911 in emergencies.
At Trump’s Pittsburgh rally, Michael Barringer, a 55-year-old coalminer, expressed his disdain for undocumented immigrants in explaining his support for Trump: “You’ve got millions and millions of illegal aliens crossing the border. They don’t speak English. They don’t say a pledge allegiance to the flag. They freeload off of us. I’m all for legal immigration, but not coming across the border illegally, taking American jobs.”
Elizabeth Slaby, 81, was the first in line at Harris’s Allentown rally, arriving at about 6am. She said she was a registered Republican for more than 50 years, but changed her registration after the January 6 attack: “I never thought I’d see a woman president and now I’m so, so excited.”
Lauren Gambino, Sam Levine and David Smith contributed reporting
Read more of the Guardian’s 2024 US election coverage:
After a historic US election cycle that saw the incumbent president step down from his party’s ticket and two assassination attempts against the Republican presidential nominee, voters are (finally) casting their ballots.
Tens of millions of Americans will have already voted by the time that polls close on 5 November, but tens of millions more will cast ballots in person on election day. In 2020, more than 200 million Americans voted in the presidential race, as turnout hit its highest level since 1992.
This year, election experts expect voter turnout to be similarly robust, with Americans eager to make their voices heard in what will probably be a very close contest between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. Voters will also have the opportunity to weigh in on thousands of other elections happening at the federal, state and local levels.
As voters head to the polls, here’s a guide on how to navigate an election night that is guaranteed to be eventful:
6pm ET: polls start to close
The first polls will close in eastern Kentucky and much of Indiana at 6pm ET. Democrats’ expectations are low in the two Republican-leaning states: Trump is virtually guaranteed to win both, and Republicans are expected to easily hold most of the two states’ House seats as well.
7pm ET: polls fully close in six states, including Georgia
Americans will get their first clues about the outcome of the presidential race at 7pm ET, when polls close in the battleground state of Georgia. Joe Biden won Georgia by just 0.2 points in 2020, after Trump carried the state by 5 points four years earlier. This year, Trump appears to have a slight advantage over Harris in the Peach state, but a strong night for Democrats could put Georgia in their win column again.
As Georgia starts to count its ballots, polls will also close in Virginia, where both parties hope to flip a House seat. Republicans are looking to expand their narrow majority in the House, and the results in Virginia’s second and seventh congressional districts could give an early indication of the party’s success.
7.30pm ET: polls close in North Carolina, Ohio and West Virginia
North Carolina represents one of the largest tests for Harris, who has run neck and neck with Trump in the state’s polling. Trump won North Carolina by 1 point in 2020 and 3 points in 2016, and a loss in this battleground state could doom the former president. Democrats also expect a victory in the North Carolina gubernatorial race, given the recent revelations about Republican Mark Robinson’s disturbing internet activity.
Meanwhile, the results in Ohio and West Virginia could decide control of the Senate. Republicans are expected to pick up a seat in West Virginia, where the independent senator Joe Manchin decided against seeking re-election; and the Democratic incumbent, Sherrod Brown, is facing a tough race in Ohio. If Republicans win both races, that would erase Democrats’ current 51-49 advantage in the Senate.
8pm ET: polls fully close in 16 states, including Pennsylvania
This will represent a pivotal moment in the presidential race. Whoever wins Pennsylvania’s 19 electoral votes is much more likely to win the White House, a fact that both nominees acknowledged as they held numerous campaign events in the state.
“If we win Pennsylvania, we win the whole thing,” Trump said at a rally in September. “It’s very simple.”
Pennsylvania will also host some of the nation’s most competitive congressional races. If it is a good night for Republicans, they could flip the seat of the incumbent Democratic senator Bob Casey, who is facing off against the former hedge fund CEO Dave McCormick.
But if Democrats have an especially strong night, they may set their sights on Florida, where the final polls close at 8pm ET. In addition to Harris’s long-shot hopes of flipping a state that Trump won twice, the Democrat Debbie Mucarsel-Powell is looking to unseat the Republican senator Rick Scott, who has maintained a polling advantage in the race. An upset win for Mucarsel-Powell could allow Democrats to maintain their Senate majority.
8.30pm ET: polls close in Arkansas
There won’t be much suspense in Arkansas, as Trump is expected to easily win the solidly Republican state. Arkansas does have the distinction of being the only state where polls will close at 8.30pm ET, but most Americans’ attention will be on the results trickling in from battleground states by this point in the night.
9pm ET: polls fully close in 15 states, including Michigan and Wisconsin
This will be the do-or-die moment for Harris. In 2016, Trump’s ability to eke out narrow victories in the “blue wall” states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin sent him to the White House, but Biden won all three battlegrounds four years later.
Harris’s most likely path to 270 electoral votes runs through Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin this year, so Trump could secure a second term if he can pick off even one of those states.
Michigan and Wisconsin will also play a potentially decisive role in the battle for Congress. Democrats currently hold two Senate seats in the states that are up for grabs this year, and Republican victories in either race could give them a majority. Michigan’s seventh congressional district, which became an open seat after Elissa Slotkin chose to run for the Senate rather than seek re-election, has been described as “the most competitive open seat in the country”.
In New York, where polls also close at 9pm ET, Democrats have the opportunity to flip several House seats that Republicans won in 2022. If they are successful, it could give Democrats a House majority.
10pm ET: polls fully close in Nevada, Montana and Utah
Harris hopes to keep Nevada in her column, as Democratic presidential candidates have won the state in every race since 2008. Trump previously led Nevada polls, but Harris has closed that gap in the final weeks of the race.
Another two Senate races will come to a close at this point in the night as well. In Nevada, the Democratic incumbent, Jacky Rosen, is favored to hold her seat, but her fellow Democratic senator Jon Tester’s prospects appear grim in Montana.
If Republicans have not already clinched a Senate majority by the time Montana’s polls close, this may be the moment when they officially capture control of the upper chamber.
11pm ET: polls fully close in four states, including California
While Harris is virtually guaranteed a victory in her home state of California, the state’s House races carry important implications for control of Congress. Five House Republicans face toss-up races in California, according to the Cook Political Report, so the state represents Democrats’ biggest opportunity to regain a majority in the chamber.
12am ET: polls close in Hawaii and most of Alaska
By the time polls close in Hawaii and most of Alaska, Americans should have a much better sense of who will be moving into the White House come January. But if 2020 is any indication, the nation may have to wait a bit longer to hear a final call on who won the presidential race.
In 2020, the AP did not declare Biden as the winner of the presidential election until 7 November at 11.26am ET – four days after the first polls closed. And in 2016, it took until 2.29am ET the morning after election day to declare Trump as the winner.
Given how close the race for the White House is expected to be, Americans might have to settle in for a long night – or even week – to learn who their next president is.
With just one day remaining until the US presidential election, campaigning has hit overdrive.
Democratic candidate Kamala Harris and her Republican rival Donald Trump are on a tour of swing states aiming to sway undecided voters. On Sunday, Harris was in Michigan, while Trump focused on North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Georgia.
What are the latest updates from the polls?
A recent New York Times/Siena poll shows that Trump and Harris are effectively tied in Pennsylvania, each receiving 48 percent of the vote.
Meanwhile, according to FiveThirtyEight’s National Polls tracker, Harris holds a narrow lead of 1 percentage point over Trump.
However, this lead is shrinking, indicating that either candidate has a strong chance of winning.
In critical swing states, the competition is intensifying, with candidates frequently alternating their lead based on the latest polls.
Key battleground states include Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, Michigan, Arizona, Wisconsin, and Nevada.
According to FiveThirtyEight’s daily tracker, Harris holds a narrow lead in Michigan and Wisconsin, with margins of approximately 0.8 points and 0.6 points, respectively.
On the other hand, Trump is gaining ground in Arizona, where he currently has a 2.5-point advantage over Harris. In North Carolina and Georgia, his lead hovers at about 1.5 points. Additionally, Trump maintains a 0.9-point advantage in Nevada and holds a slim margin of 0.3 points in the crucial state of Pennsylvania.
What was Harris up to on Sunday?
Harris made her first stop in Detroit, where she spoke to a church congregation.
“We heard Harris speak about the need to unite the country, to help it heal after a polarising election,” Al Jazeera’s Teresa Bo, reporting from Detroit, Michigan, said.
“She’s certainly appealing to the African American voters in Michigan, a crucial swing state. Recent polls show that she’s lagging behind, especially among African American men. Many people we have spoken to say they are not going to vote because they don’t believe it will impact their lives,” Bo said.
Harris visits Greater Emmanuel Institutional Church of God in Christ in Detroit, Michigan [Leah Millis/Reuters]
Later in the day, Harris mentioned that she had submitted her mail-in ballot for the 2024 election, sending it to California. She continued her campaign in Michigan in efforts to earn the support of Arab American voters.
“I have been very clear [that] the level of death of innocent Palestinian children is unconscionable. We need to end the war, and we need to get the hostages out. And as president of the United States, I will do everything in my power to achieve that end,” she said.
Many Arab Americans, who have historically favoured Democrats, have shifted towards the Republican presidential candidate this election amid widespread anger and frustration over US support of Israel’s devastating war on Gaza.
Harris gestures during a campaign rally at Michigan State University in East Lansing [Carlos Osorio/Reuters]
What was Trump up to on Sunday?
The former president started his campaign in Lititz, Pennsylvania where he said he felt he “shouldn’t have left” the White House after his 2020 election loss, which he has yet to concede.
The Republican presidential candidate also launched into a tirade against the voting process, accusing his opponents of “fighting so hard to steal this damn thing”. He also lashed out at the press.
“I have this piece of glass here,” said Trump, referring to the ballistic glass placed in front of him at events following a gunman’s attempt to assassinate him at a July rally. “But all we have really over here is the fake news. And to get me, somebody would have to shoot through the fake news. And I don’t mind that so much.”
Reporting from a Trump rally in North Carolina, Al Jazeera’s Alan Fisher noted that Trump appeared tired during his speech in Kinston.
“It’s a very low-energy sort of performance for Donald Trump, understandably, since he’s been on the road for a long time,” Fisher said.
“He started the day in Pennsylvania, is here in North Carolina, and has still one more rally to do in Georgia. He’s already running about two hours behind.
In Georgia, Trump slammed the Biden-Harris administration on immigrants and the economy. “I am hereby calling for the death penalty for any migrant that kills an American citizen or a law enforcement officer.”
Trump gestures as he finishes speaking at a campaign rally in Lititz [Evan Vucci/AP]
What’s next for the Harris and Trump campaigns?
Harris heads to Pennsylvania
Harris will spend the final day before the election at a series of campaign events in the swing state of Pennsylvania.
She will be joined by several celebrities, including Lady Gaga, Ricky Martin, Just Blaze and Oprah Winfrey at a Get Out the Vote event in Philadelphia on Monday night.
Harris will also campaign with D-Nice, Katy Perry and Andra Day in Pittsburgh.
In Pennsylvania, which holds 19 Electoral votes, all eyes are on what many see as the “tipping point” in the race for the White House.
According to FiveThirtyEight, the race in Pennsylvania is nearly deadlocked. A recent poll by Univision and YouGov shows that more than 60 percent of Latino voters in Pennsylvania say they plan to support Harris in the election.
Trump is back in North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Michigan
Trump will hold a rally in North Carolina in the morning before travelling to Pennsylvania for events in Reading, west of Philadelphia, and in Pittsburgh.
He will end the day with a rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he will seek to energise his base to vote on November 5.
Trump won North Carolina in 2016 and 2020. But according to Al Jazeera’s Fisher, Trump needs to win again in the swing state.
“The fact that four of his last 10 events have been here in the state tells us his campaign is not certain it is a done deal,” Fisher added.
As many anxious US election watchers constantly refresh the forecast from 538 in the final days before polls close, their attention tends to focus on the presidential race between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, but the polling website’s forecasts of the battle for House and the Senate paint an even more worrying picture for Democrats.
As of Saturday evening,538 gives Trump a 50% chance of winning the presidential race, while Republicans have a comfortable 90% chance of regaining control of the Senate and a narrower 52% chance of maintaining their House majority.
Those numbers reflect a reality that is chilling to left-leaning Americans: Republicans have a decent shot at winning not just the White House but full control of Congress.
Even without majorities in both chambers of Congress, Trump’s victory in the presidential race would give him significant control over US foreign policy and the makeup of the federal government, both of which he is seeking to overhaul.
But a Republican trifecta in Washington would give Trump much more sweeping power to implement his legislative agenda. As the Guardian has outlined through the Stakes project, Trump’s plans include extending tax cuts, rolling back landmark laws signed by Joe Biden and advancing a rightwing cultural agenda.
One of Republicans’ most oft-repeated campaign promises is that they will extend the tax cuts Trump signed into law in 2017, many of which are set to expire at the end of 2025. An analysis from the non-partisan Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that making the tax cuts permanent would cost $288.5bn in 2026 alone and disproportionately benefit the highest-income households. The highest-income 20% of Americans would receive nearly two-thirds of that tax benefit, compared with just 1% for the lowest-income 20% of Americans.
Perhaps the most haunting possibility for Democrats is that Republicans would use their governing trifecta in Washington to enact a nationwide abortion ban. Trump has said he would veto such a policy, but his repeated flip-flopping on the issue has raised questions about that claim. Research has shown that existing abortion bans have forced doctors to provide substandard medical care, and they have been blamed for the deaths of at leastfour women: Josseli Barnica, Nevaeh Crain, Candi Miller and Amber Thurman.
With majorities in both chambers, Republicans could also allocate vast resources to assist Trump’s plan to deport millions of undocumented migrants, which has become a central plank of his re-election platform. While US courts have affirmed that presidents have much leeway when it comes to setting immigration policies, Trump will need Congress to appropriate extensive funds to carry out such a massive deportation operation.
“The United States is now an occupied country,” Trump said at a recent rally in Atlanta. “But on November 5, 2024, that will be liberation day in America.”
In addition to advancing Trump’s agenda, Republicans would almost certainly be looking to unravel key portions of Biden’s legacy, including the Inflation Reduction Act. The IRA marked the country’s most significant response yet to the climate crisis and has spurred significant energy-related investments in many districts, prompting some Republicans to suggest that Congress should preserve some of the law’s provisions while repealing others.
That quandary reflects a potential problem for Republicans if they win full control of Congress: what will they do with the Affordable Care Act (ACA)? When Republicans last held a governing trifecta, during Trump’s first two years in office, they tried and failed to repeal and replace the ACA. The Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, recently suggested that there would be “no Obamacare” if his party wins big on Tuesday, according to a video published by NBC News.
But he seemed to caveat that statement by telling supporters: “The ACA is so deeply ingrained, we need massive reform to make this work, and we got a lot of ideas on how to do that.”
In recent years, both parties have experienced the pains of governing with narrow congressional majorities, and election experts widely expect the battle for the House and Senate to be especially close this year. During Biden’s first two years in office, his legislative proposals were repeatedly blocked in the Senate despite Democrats holding a majority because of the concerns of two centrist members of their caucus, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona.
When Republicans held a 52-48 majority in the Senate in 2017, they still failed to repeal and replace the ACA because three members of their conference blocked the proposal. Two of those members – Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska – are still in the Senate today and may be resistant to various components of Trump’s agenda, particularly a potential abortion ban.
Despite the potential challenges of narrow majorities, Trump has made clear at every turn that he will use his presidential power to its maximum effect if he wins on Tuesday.
“With your vote this November, we’re going to fire Kamala and we are going to save America,” Trump said at his recent rally in State College, Pennsylvania. “We will never ever back down, and we will never surrender.”
The voters will have the final say on Tuesday to determine just how much power Trump and his party will have come January.
Read more of the Guardian’s 2024 US election coverage:
On 5 November 2024, millions of Americans will head to the polls to choose between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump for president of the United States. The two candidates have offered starkly different visions for the future of the nation. As the election enters the final stretch, the Guardian US is averaging national and state polls to see how the two candidates are faring.
Latest polls
Polling average over a moving 10-day period
Guardian graphic. Source: Analysis of polls gathered by 538.
Latest analysis: Nationally, Harris has a one-point advantage, 48% to 47%, over her Republican opponent, virtually identical to last week. Such an advantage is well with the margin of errors of most polls. The battleground states, too, remain in a dead heat.
But in a fractured political landscape that has featured threats of retribution from Trump, accusations of fascism and racism from Harris, and warnings that democracy itself is on the ballot, the bigger picture – that uniformity, over a prolonged period – has seasoned observers scratching their heads.
Polling average over a moving 10-day period. Each circle represents an individual poll result and is sized by 538’s pollster rating
Notes on data
To calculate our polling averages, Guardian US took a combination of head-to-head and multi-candidate polls and calculated a rolling 10-day average for each candidate. Our tracker uses polls gathered by 538 and filters out lower-quality pollsters for national polls. Our state polling averages use a lower quality threshold for inclusion due to the small numbers of state polls. If there were no polls over the the 10-day period, we leave the average blank. On 11 Oct Guardian US began rounding averages to the nearest whole number to better reflect the lack of certainty in the polling figures.
Polling averages capture how the race stands at a particular moment in time and are likely to change as the election gets closer. Averages from states with small numbers of polls are also more susceptible to errors and biases. Our averages are an estimate of the support that the candidates have in key swing states and on the national stage. The election is decided by the electoral college, so these averages should not be taken as a likelihood of winning the election in November.
