Five days to the US election, Harris, Trump in neck-to-neck polls

With less than one week before election day, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are still campaigning in battleground states where both are fighting for undecided voters.

So far more than 50 million Americans have already voted, the University of Florida’s Election Lab says. This includes about 29.3 million in-person votes and roughly 26 million mail-in ballots

Latest updates on the polls

The latest polls from The Economist/YouGov and TIPP Insights, released on Wednesday, indicate that Harris has a slight lead of just one percentage point, with 44 percent of voters supporting her compared with 43 percent for Trump.

In a separate poll by The Washington Post and George Mason University, also released on Wednesday, voters expressed concerns about Trump’s potential reaction if he loses, recalling the 2020 election when his loss triggered the January 6 Capitol riots.

Read also: 7 days to US election, Trump lead in swing states, Harris nationally 

Of more than 5,000 registered voters in key battleground states, 57 percent said they were “very” or “somewhat” worried that Trump’s supporters might become violent if he loses. In contrast, only 31 percent believed that Harris’s supporters would respond similarly, Al Jazeera reported.

Additionally, according to FiveThirtyEight’s National poll tracker, as of Wednesday, Harris continues to lead nationally by about 1.4 points. However, this lead is within the margin of error, indicating that the race remains highly competitive.

In swing states – critical states which could determine the election outcome – the race is even tighter. The key battleground states include Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, Michigan, Arizona, Wisconsin and Nevada.

According to FiveThirtyEight’s daily poll tracker, Harris’s narrow lead in Michigan has grown from a 0.2-point margin to 1 point. She also has a slight edge in Nevada. In Wisconsin, her lead has increased to 0.8 points.

On the other hand, Donald Trump holds a slight advantage in Pennsylvania, slightly increasing from 0.2 points to 0.4 points. His lead in North Carolina has decreased from 1.3 points to 1.1 points.

Trump has gained ground in Arizona, where he currently leads Harris by 2.2 points, and in Georgia, where he has a 1.8-point advantage.

In six of the seven swing states, the candidates are within two points of each other, which falls within the polls’ margins of error, making each state a toss-up just days before the election. Although Trump leads Arizona by 2.1 points, this difference is still very close to the margin of error of three percentage points.