 "Donald Trump and Kamala Harris-File Photo")
With less than two weeks left in the highly anticipated 2024 US presidential elections, the final national poll before Election Day from The New York Times and Siena College shows troubling signs US Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris. The latest polls found Harris deadlocked with former President Donald Trump.
The figures can be concerning for the Harris-Walz campaign since the previous poll conducted by the same entity gave Harris a 3 percentage points against Trump. The new polls are now sparking predictions of Harris losing the popular vote to Trump.
If the prediction turns out to be a reality, the Democratic ticket will be lose the popular vote for the first time since the last four elections. The party has a stellar record in this regards since Democrats won the popular vote in seven out of the last eight races.
What are the polls saying?
At the start of Harris’s campaign for presidency, many speculated that the vice president has the chance to win popular vote but losing the Electoral College to Trump, given the tightness of polling in seven key swing states. However, the New York Times poll suggested that the 60-year-old Democratic firebrand is not building up the type of huge lead in the popular vote that might suggest she would also win the closely fought swing states.
According to the The New York Times and Siena College poll, both the candidates received 48 per cent of the popular vote in the poll. In the last poll, Harris had a lead of 49 percent to 46 percent over Trump. The change in polling is within the margin of error.
The poll indicted another bad news for Harris when it stated that just 28 per cent of respondents believe that the United States as a country is heading towards the right direction. Since Harris is part of the current administration, such numbers are negative to her standing.
The poll was conducted on October 20-23 and covered responses from 2,516 voters worldwide. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.2 percentage points. Polling between the two candidates in all seven states remains incredibly tight, suggesting the race could be one of the closest in American history. Hence, it will be interesting to see whether America will get its first US President.
With inputs from agencies.