Harris’s “blue wall” broke, Trump took the lead in the race –

Kamala Harris is running from vice president to president. AP

According to opinion polls, Kamala Harris is a slightly more popular candidate for the next president of the United States.

With about two weeks to go until the November 5th election, an average of 48.2 percent of Americans support the Democratic candidate. Republican Donald Trump’s support is 46.4 percent.

In this story, Iltalehti follows the development of support polls during the last month of the campaign. The numbers in the updated graphics come from the Fivethirtyeight, or 538, website, which compiles opinion polls from different parties and weights them according to, among other things, their reliability.

Harris’ national approval rating has increased by about 3.5 percentage points since he replaced Joe Biden as the Democratic presidential nominee in early August. Trump’s support has also increased during the early autumn, but not quite as much.

If the graphic is not visible, you can also find it here.

Libra states

Nationwide support gives an indication of the big picture of the election, but due to the election method, it does not decide the name of the new president of the USA.

Presidential candidates gather voters behind them in the elections. Each of the 50 states has a population-based number of them. In all states except Maine and Nebraska, the candidate who receives the majority of the vote wins all of the state’s electors.

More than 40 states are so clearly tilted in the direction of either the Democrats or the Republicans that the outcome of their elections is almost certainly known in advance. For example, California’s 54 electors go to Harris and Texas’ 40 electors to Trump.

There are a total of 538 electors for the president, so 270 electors are required to win. Harris will almost certainly get 225 and Trump 218 voters. The fate of 93 electors will be decided in seven states.

In the so-called rust belt, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin form the “blue wall”, which gets its name from the blue color of the Democrats. Harris led for a long time in all of them, but two weeks before the election the situation is practically exactly the same.

Of the Libra states, Pennsylvania is considered the most decisive, with 19 electors in the division. That’s where Trump passed Harris on Sunday. However, the difference is a paltry 0.4 percentage points.

Trump is also strong in the southern “sun zone”. He leads in the polls in Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina. In Nevada, Harris is ahead.

If the elections were held now and the polls of this very moment were carried out as they were, Trump would win Harris by 278–260 in the number of voters. Accuscore’s forecast for Iltalehti predicts an even clearer victory for Trump.

If the graphic is not visible, you can also find it here.

The situation is even

To Trump’s chagrin, polls don’t decide elections, predict the winner, or even always be right. The differences between Harris and Trump in the swing states are so small that the majority of the measurements fit the candidates within the margin of error.

In practice, the situation in the elections is therefore ticklingly even, and either can still win.

Based on comments leaked from Harris’ camp to the press, Democrats fear the polls are once again underestimating Trump’s approval rating. The Finnish polling guru Juho Rahkonen also warns about the uncertainty of the measurements.

For example, the so-called October surprise can still turn the situation upside down.

The only thing that is certain is that the Gallup poll, which decides the election, will be done at the ballot box on November 5th. Advance and postal voting is already underway.