What the late polls say about who will win the US election

As America enters the final days of the election campaign, here’s what the polls are saying about Donald Trump and Joe Biden.

As America enters the final days of the election campaign, what are the polls saying?

More than 80 million people have already voted, either in-person or by mail, ahead of election day on November 3 – nearly 60 per cent of the total number of votes cast in 2016, according to the University of Florida’s US Elections Project.

The record-smashing early vote turnout points to a similarly unprecedented final vote tally this year, in an election both Republicans and Democrats are characterising as the most important in United States history.

As of Thursday, Democratic nominee Joe Biden was the clear favourite to win – if you believe the polls.

The former Vice President holds a 7.4 percentage point lead in national average polls, according to Real Clear Politics, and is ahead in five of the six key battleground states of Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and North Carolina, but tied in Arizona.

Poll analysis website FiveThirtyEight gives President Donald Trump just an 11 per cent chance of victory. “At this point, President Trump needs a big polling error in his favour if he’s going to win,” the website notes.

“Although the error doesn’t need to be as big as you might think, if you were just looking at national polls. Take Pennsylvania, the state our forecast currently thinks is most likely to decide the election. Biden doesn’t have much extra cushion in polls there, so a 2016-magnitude polling error could deliver the state to Trump.”

A Trump supporter in Tampa, Florida.

Mr Trump has indeed vowed to once again defy the polls, which were similarly confident of a Hillary Clinton victory in 2016, predicting he will be swept in for a second term on a giant “red wave” of voters not captured by traditional polling.

Political observers have noted there again appears to be a similar enthusiasm gap, with the President’s packed rallies, which draw thousands of supporters, standing in stark contrast to Mr Biden’s more modest audiences.

Both candidates were concentrating their efforts on Florida on Thursday, with Mr Trump talking up his post-lockdown economic recovery and hammering his message of moving past COVID-19.

“They will allow you nothing,” he told a rally in Tampa, referring to Democrats. “We’re never going to lock down again. We’re open for business.”

Mr Biden addressed a drive-in rally Broward County north of Miami, the first of his two Florida rallies on Thursday. “I’m not going to shut down the economy,” he said. “I’m not going to shut down the country. But I am going to shut down the virus.”

Mr Trump cannot lose Florida if he is to be re-elected – he narrowly defeated Mrs Clinton in Florida in 2016 but an NBC News/Marist poll released on Thursday had Mr Biden with a 51-47 lead in the state.

The poll showed Biden had a commanding lead among Black voters (84-14), women (57-41) and independents (55-41) and was also favoured by seniors (53-46), who make up a large proportion of the voters in the Sunshine State.

Florida is tied for third with New York in total number of electoral votes at 29 out of a total of 538. Candidates must win 270 electoral votes for victory.

Nearly 7.4 million people have already voted in Florida, according to the US Elections Project, more than half of all registered voters in the state. Democrats are currently leading Republicans by 40.5 to 37.7 per cent.

– with AFP