The upcoming presidential election will take place on Nov. 5, and based on the current polls, it is likely to be a very close election. According to The New York Times, Democratic Party candidate Kamala Harris is currently expected to win by around 14 electoral votes over Republican Party candidate Donald Trump. While Harris has generally had a slight advantage over Trump in the majority of the polls, it is possible for anything to happen when election time comes.
One of the main factors that could decide the fate of the election are swing states, or states where both candidates are very close in the polls. Due to the Electoral College system, all it takes is a few thousand votes in a couple of states to completely change the course of the election. States that currently seem possible to go either way in this upcoming election are Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
The two closest states favoring Trump at this point are North Carolina and Arizona, with both currently favoring Trump by less than 1 percent of their states’ total votes. The two closest states currently favoring Harris are Michigan and Pennsylvania,with the pair favoring her by 1% or less at the moment. Because all of these states have decent numbers of electoral votes, either candidate unexpectedly winning one or two of these states could possibly be enough for that candidate to win the election.
In the 2020 presidential election, although Joe Biden won by a sizable amount of electoral votes over Trump— 306 to 232 —an important part of that victory was Biden narrowly winning the states of Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Arizona, all of which Trump was predicted to win. Had Trump won all of these states, he would have won the entire election.
In September, the Georgia State Election Board voted in favor of hand counting all ballots in the upcoming election. This change will likely delay Georgia’s election results, and as we have seen in previous elections, lead to controversy surrounding the results. Based on this fact this election is likely to be very close again, it is possible that voters may not accept the results. Emotions will almost certainly be high on both sides after the results have been announced.
