Who is winning the US election: Latest polling data on Donald Trump and Kamala Harris

The race between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris is incredibly tight, but the latest polls show one candidate has a slight lead.

With the biggest economy and most powerful military, the eyes of the world are closely watching the US presidential election process.

And with just 29 days until Americans vote en masse, the polls are giving a hint about who is more likely to prevail: Donald Trump or Kamala Harris.

It’s still incredibly close, but this is the latest from what the tea leaves are telling us.

Seven states will be key

There are a couple of important points to make about US presidential elections.

While many pollsters make predictions about the nationwide popular vote, and it is an important gauge, it’s the archaic US electoral college system that really matters in the end.

Under the system, each US state is apportioned a number of presidential electors, to a total of 538, with a majority of 270 or more needed required to elect the president.

Many of the US states will almost certainly vote one particular way: California and Massachusetts will go for the Democrats while Tennessee and Texas will sway Republican.

It’s seven key swing states that will ultimately decide the election. These include; Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.

A map showing which states are likely to vote for Republicans and Democrats. Picture: 270towin

It takes 270 to win

If you take the US electoral map and give the “red” states to Republicans and “blue” states to Democrats, it gives you a starting picture.

The consensus is that Democrats will get a minimum of 226 electoral votes and Republicans 219.

The states shaded light red and light blue are less certain, while the states coloured tan are a toss-up.

One way to get a handle of the polling is to aggregate polls from across the country.

That’s exactly what political news website RealClearPolitics (RCP) does.

According to RCP, Trump is leading in Arizona, North Carolina and Georgia. Meanwhile, Harris is leading in Nevada, Wisconsin and Michigan. The critical state of Pennsylvania is a tie.

Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. Picture: Supplied

Going by the current RCP averages, and without Pennsylvania applied, neither Trump nor Harris would have enough votes to win. That would make Pennsylvania the kingmaker.

Polling site FiveThirtyEight uses a different methodology. It also calculates the averages for polls, but also applies adjustments relating to things like voting history, economic indicators and political factors including incumbency.

According to the latest FiveThirtyEight model, which simulates 1000 different electoral scenarios, Harris is predicted to win 55 out of 100 and Trump 45 out of 100 times.

Another place to look is the Silver Bulletin, run by Nate Silver (formerly of FiveThirtyEight).

As Silver explains, his methodology is similar to that he used when he ran FiveThirtyEight, but with the Covid-specific assumption removed. He also adjusted the model for new dynamics that show Republican are more likely to vote. The Silver Bulletin also weighs more reliable polls more heavily.

The Silver Bulletin has Harris winning Pennsylvania, as well as Michigan and Wisconsin. As things stand, that means it is also predicting a Harris win with 276 electoral votes.

The Economist also tracks polls, firstly using a prediction of the national popular vote. It also tracks “fundamentals”, which includes “structural factors that influence voter decisions”. It then hones into state polls and looks at nine factors including how the state voted in the past, the level of education and how median age of its residents.

The latest Economist model, based on 10,000 simulations, has the race as evenly split with Harris and Trump both having a 50 per cent chance of victory — although it has Harris marginally ahead.

It’s also worth examining the views of people like Allan Lichtman.

The historian uses a model he calls “The Keys to the White House”, which are true or false propositions like “There is no significant third party or independent campaign.”

He claims to have used the model to correctly predict the winner of all but one election since 1984, all without using polling data.

Lichtman says Harris will become the first woman President of the United States.

Lastly, the betting odds also show some predictive power — although it’s debatable how much.

The punters are giving Harris a slight edge, with Sportsbet paying $1.83 for Harris and $1.91 for Trump.

It’s fair to say that the race is incredibly close, however an overview of the data shows that Harris has her nose in front.

Originally published as Who is winning the US election: Latest polling data on Donald Trump and Kamala Harris