Seven weeks before the vote, and after months of ups and downs, the elections to choose the president of the United States They remain absolutely open, subject to a vote in seven or eight states.
Our average predictions indicate that Kamala Harris has a 53% chance of winning, but that means her rival, Donald Trump, has almost the same chance, 47%. The numbers come from combining six forecasts we consider reliable, from the model based on surveys of The economist (52% of options for Harris), the Polymarket prediction market (51%), betting (52%) or the Metaculus forecasting platform (55%).
Furthermore, another reason for caution is that expectations have declined over the past three months, as illustrated by the evolution of forecasts:
In June, the probability of a Trump victory was 55%, according to forecasters, who raised their odds to 75% in mid-July, at best, after the terrible debate of Joe Biden, then his rival, and just after the attack on the Republican. Then Kamala Harris came along and turned the tables. The vice president made her final advance this week, when she played a good debate.
The first sign to understand why the forecasts are equal are the national polls. In these polls, Harris appears with a three-point lead, with about 49% of the vote, against 46% for Trump. However, the election will indeed be decided in some territories.
Knowing what's happening outside means understanding what's going to happen inside, not missing anything.
The situation in key states
Occupying the White House involves reaching 270 delegates or electoral votes on Election Day, adding those distributed by each state, with the particularity that the candidate who wins a territory wins all of its delegates. For Harris and Trump, it is essential to win in as many areas as possible, but it does not matter whether they do it by one vote or a million. Furthermore, with the current distribution of forces, it is normal that Democrats need more votes to win the presidency. In 2020, Biden beat Trump by 4.5 points in the national vote and won the presidency with 306 delegates. However, four years earlier, in 2016, Hillary Clinton lost to Trump, even though she won the national vote by 2.1 points.
This is why a handful of states are indispensable.
There are seven that are presented as decisive: Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Georgia, Arizona and North Carolina. These territories distribute 93 electoral votes (out of 538 total), and their electorates are divided, so they could fall on the Republican or Democratic side. In addition, in Nebraska, which has a particular distribution system, there is another electoral vote that can change hands and, although it is unlikely, it could become decisive.
The rest of the states are very tilted; they can be considered certain or probable for the Democrats (225 electoral votes), or certain or probable for the Republicans (219).
In 2016, Trump won the White House by winning six of the seven key states (all except Nevada), and Biden did so in 2020 by winning six more (all except North Carolina).
The situation now? All seven territories are in play. Trump has an edge in North Carolina (60 percent chance of winning, according to Metaculus) and Harris has it in Michigan (63 percent) and Wisconsin (60 percent). But guessing the winner of Georgia, Arizona, Nevada and Pennsylvania is practically a coin toss.
The tremendous equality between these four states explains why the elections are currently unpredictable. Moreover, unless there is a profound change, due to an unforeseen event or news, the uncertainty will continue until election night and the presidency of the United States will be decided by a handful of votes in one part of the country.