With one week to go until Election Day, it remains a coin-flip White House race between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Trump.
Facing a margin-of-error race in both the national polls and the swing state surveys, both the vice president and the former president, their running mates, and top surrogates continue to fan out across the seven crucial battleground states that will likely decide the 2024 presidential election.
On the trail
The Republican presidential nominee starts Tuesday from his home base in Palm Beach, Florida, where his campaign says Trump will deliver remarks to the press.
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The former president then holds two events in Pennsylvania, which, with 19 electoral votes at stake, is the largest prize among the key swing states.
Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, campaigns with two stops in battleground Michigan.
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The Democratic nominee is in the nation’s capital, taking a break from swing state travel for a day, as she delivers what the Harris campaign touts as her closing argument, in an address from the Ellipse, with the White House as a backdrop.
Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, makes three stops in the crucial southeastern battleground of Georgia.
Casting ballots
Early voting turnout has been brisk, with swing states such as Georgia, Michigan and North Carolina breaking records.
And with Trump apparently fully on board, the GOP’s efforts to convince Republicans to vote early appear to be working.
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The GOP hopes this surge in early voting will help the party rebound from setbacks in the 2020 and 2022 elections, when Democrats dominated early in-person voting and absentee balloting.
Poll position
A handful of national polls point to a dead heat between Harris and Trump, while others indicate the vice president with the slight advantage or the former president with the edge.
But getting past the top lines, there are warning signs for both candidates.
Harris has lost her favorability advantage over Trump in some of the most recent surveys.
After replacing President Biden atop the Democrats’ 2024 ticket in July, the vice president’s favorable ratings soared. But they’ve steadily eroded over the past month.
Another red flag for Harris are polls indicating her support among Black voters is below Biden’s levels in the 2020 election.
For Trump, his support among White voters is on par with his standing in the 2020 election, when he lost the White House to Biden.
And the former president still faces a healthy deficit to the vice president when it comes to being trustworthy and caring about people.
While national polls are closely watched, the race for the White House is not based on the national popular vote. It’s a battle for the states and their electoral votes.
And the latest surveys in the seven crucial battleground states whose razor-thin margins decided Biden’s 2020 victory over Trump and will likely determine whether Harris or Trump wins the 2024 election, are mostly within the margin of error.
The most recent Fox News national poll indicated Trump had a two-point edge, but Harris had a 6-point advantage among respondents questioned in all seven battleground states.
Cash dash
While there’s a margin of error in the polls, there is a clear frontrunner in the battle for campaign cash, another important indicator in presidential politics. And it’s Harris.
According to the latest figures the two major party presidential campaigns filed with the Federal Election Commission, Harris hauled in $97 million during the first half of October.
That far outpaced the $16 million the Trump campaign said it raised during the first half of this month.
Both campaigns use a number of affiliated fundraisings committees to raise money. And when those are included, Trump narrowed the gap, but trailed $176 million to $97 million during the first two weeks of this month.
During the first 16 days of October, the Democratic presidential nominee’s campaign outspent Trump $166 million to $99 million, with paid media the top expenditure for both campaigns.
However, Harris finished the reporting period with more cash in her coffers. As of Oct. 16, she had $119 million cash on hand, while Trump had $36 million. When joint fundraising committees are also included, Harris holds a $240 million to $168 million cash-on-hand advantage.
