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Harris or Trump? What the polls are saying a day before the 2024 election

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The 2024 presidential election is one day away. And the final batch of major national polls and swing state surveys shows the race between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump is as tight as it's ever been.

Yahoo News/YouGov poll

According to the final Yahoo News/YouGov poll of the cycle, Trump and Harris are now tied nationally.

The three previous Yahoo News/YouGov surveys found Harris with a slight lead over Trump among registered voters, ranging from one point after the Democratic National Convention in August to five points after their Sept. 10 debate (when third-party candidates were factored in).

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Now Harris (47%) and Trump (47%) are tied on the same question for the first time since Harris declared her candidacy on July 21.

The Iowa poll everyone's talking about

A new Des Moines Register poll conducted Oct. 28-31 and released over the weekend showed Harris leading Trump 47% to 44% among likely voters in Iowa, a state that was not considered to be in play for Democrats.

In June, the same poll showed Trump with an 18-point lead over President Biden. In September, it found Trump had a 4-point advantage over Harris.

“It’s hard for anybody to say they saw this coming,” J. Ann Selzer, the pollster who conducted the survey, told the paper. “She has clearly leaped into a leading position.”

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Trump dismissed the poll in a post on Truth Social and called Selzer — a respected pollster who accurately predicted his wins in the Hawkeye State in 2016 and 2020 — a "Trump hater."

National polls

Three websites that aggregate national and state surveys — the Silver Bulletin, FiveThirtyEight and the New York Times — currently have the national polling average as follows:

Silver Bulletin

  • Harris: 48.5%

  • Trump: 47.8%

FiveThirtyEight

  • Harris: 47.9%

  • Trump: 47.0%

New York Times

  • Harris: 49%

  • Trump: 48%

All three show Harris with a narrow lead in the popular vote of one percentage point or less — well within the aggregated margins of error.

Swing state polls

The same websites have polling averages in the seven battleground states as follows:

Silver Bulletin

  • Nevada: Trump 48.4% | Harris 48.0%

  • Arizona: Trump 49.3% | Harris 46.7%

  • Wisconsin: Harris 48.6% | Trump 47.8%

  • Michigan: Harris 48.3% | Trump 47.2%

  • Pennsylvania: Trump 48.4% | Harris 48.0%

  • North Carolina: Trump 48.7% | Harris 47.6%

  • Georgia: Trump 48.9% | Harris 47.6%

FiveThirtyEight

  • Nevada: Trump 47.9% | Harris 47.3%

  • Arizona: Trump 49.0% | Harris 46.5%

  • Wisconsin: Harris 48.2% | Trump 47.3%

  • Michigan: Harris 47.9% | Trump 47.1%

  • Pennsylvania: Trump 47.9% | Harris 47.7%

  • North Carolina: Trump 48.4% | Harris 47.2%

  • Georgia: Trump 48.4% | Harris 47.2%

New York Times

  • Nevada: Trump 49% | Harris 48%

  • Arizona: Trump 50% | Harris 47%

  • Wisconsin: Harris 49% | Trump 48%

  • Michigan: Harris 49% | Trump 48%

  • Pennsylvania: Trump 49% | Harris 48%

  • North Carolina: Trump 48% | Harris 48%

  • Georgia: Trump 49% | Harris 48%

"With one day left in the 2024 campaign, the polls show one of the closest presidential elections in the history of American politics," Nate Cohn, the Times chief pollster, wrote Monday. "In the history of modern polling, there’s never been a race where the final polls showed such a close contest."

Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. (Photo illustration: Yahoo News; photos: Evan Vucci/AP, Susan Walsh/AP)
Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. (Photo illustration: Yahoo News; photos: Evan Vucci/AP, Susan Walsh/AP)

Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania — the so-called Blue Wall for Democrats — are critical for Harris. In 2016, Trump flipped all three, helping him win the presidency. In 2020, Biden reclaimed all three, with Pennsylvania clinching his victory.

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These are only averages, not projections or race calls. Those will be determined by actual votes cast on or before Election Day.

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