With just one week to Election Day in the U.S., Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are making their final pitches to voters. Harris is expected to deliver her final major speech on Tuesday at the Ellipse near the White House, where Trump held his “Stop the Steal” rally before the riot at the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Trump will be in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, where he is part of an event in Drexel Hill and holding a rally in Allentown, CNN reported Tuesday.
So far, over 43 million ballots have been cast across 47 states and the District of Columbia, with Harris having a large lead among early voters, CNN’s most recent national poll found.
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As the two candidates try to reach as many voters as possible, here are three things to know with just seven days to the election.
Polls are getting tighter
With one week to the election, pollsters are saying that there is a thin gap between Trump and Harris. The vice president is holding a narrow lead in the national polls, with a 1.4 percentage point advantage as of Tuesday, according to FiveThirtyEight’s daily election poll tracker. Trump’s numbers have gone up slightly against Harris since last week but the vice president seems to be leading overall.
Veteran pollster Nate Silver has said that his “gut” feeling suggests Trump will win the Electoral College count.
“However, I don’t think you should put any value whatsoever on anyone’s gut—including mine,” Silver wrote in the Times. “Instead, you should resign yourself to the fact that a 50-50 forecast really does mean 50-50. You should remain open to the possibility that those forecasts are wrong, and that could be the case equally in the direction of Mr. Trump or Ms. Harris.”
The seven key swing states could ultimately decide the election
Trump and Harris need 270 electoral college votes to win the election, and everything largely depends on the seven swing states — Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina, Michigan, Arizona, Wisconsin, and Nevada. These seven states are very competitive this year compared to the others, which are all comfortably Democratic or Republican, per public opinion polls.
Analysts say that if both candidates win the states where they have huge support, Harris would still need 44 electoral votes from the tossup states to win, and Trump would need 51. Meanwhile, the candidate who wins Pennsylvania (the most populous) has over a 90% chance of winning the White House, according to Silver.
With Trump and Harris knowing this very well, they have paid more attention to the swing states in the last week. On Monday, Harris was in Ann Arbor, Michigan, while her running mate Tim Walz visited Wisconsin. Their rival, Trump, held a rally in Atlanta, Georgia.
According to FiveThirtyEight’s daily poll tracker, Harris retains a narrow lead in Michigan while Trump is a little above her in Pennsylvania and Nevada.
Results may come in sooner
The 2020 election took almost five days to decide due to the pandemic when over 43% of all ballots were mailed in. Several key states weren’t prepared to quickly handle the increase in mail-in voting at the time.
Now, some states like Michigan, Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, and North Carolina have policies that will enable them to begin counting absentee ballots before Election Night. With the above factors and an expected drop in mail-ins this year, voters may not have to wait quite as long after Election Day to know who won. The results could be clear by the middle of the night or by early morning the next day.
Pennsylvania and Wisconsin do not allow for envelope processing to start before Election Day, so they may delay the process if the election is very close and comes down to those two states.
