Kamala Harris’ standing in final polls compared to Biden, Hillary Clinton

Kamala Harris enters the final weekend of the presidential race with a narrower lead over Donald Trump than her Democratic predecessors, Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton, had at comparable points in the 2020 and 2016 races.

Poll analysis reveals that Harris’s lead in both national and swing state polls is significantly slimmer than those held by Biden and Clinton, suggesting a very close election on Tuesday.

A deep sense of uncertainty hangs over the presidential contest in the final week of the race. With four days left until Election Day, both Harris and Trump are not slowing down, campaigning furiously in battleground states.

The gap is smaller for Harris

With early voting already underway in several states, Harris maintains a modest lead over Trump in national polling averages. According to polling analysis site FiveThirtyEight, she leads by 1.2 points, with 48 percent of likely voters indicating support for her, compared to Trump’s 46.8 percent.

However, RealClearPolitics shows Trump slightly ahead, with 48.4 percent compared to Harris’ 48.1, giving him a 0.3 advantage. Nate Silver’s Silver Bulletin puts Harris in the lead with 48.5 percent to Trump’s 47.4, a 1.1 margin. New York Times shows a similar result, with Harris at 49 percent to Trump’s 48, a lone point in her favor.

This is a stark contrast to the leads that Biden and Clinton had in their respective election years. In 2020, Biden led Trump by 8.4 points, according to FiveThirtyEight, and consistently maintained his lead across other polling aggregators such as RealClearPolitics and 270toWin.

This trend was the same in 2016, when Clinton had a 6.2-point lead over Trump at the same time in FiveThirtyEight’s model, and was echoed by other polling aggregators, such as RealClearPolitics and 270toWin. But despite Clinton winning the popular vote, he lost in the Electoral College.

As Election Day approaches, Harris may be leading in the national polls, but her path to the necessary 270 Electoral College votes has tightened. Like Clinton in 2016, Harris may win the popular vote, but the electoral map presents challenges.

Trump, on the other hand, has been gaining ground in key battleground states recently. As of Friday, FiveThirtyEight’s projections give the Republican nominee a 52 percent chance of winning, with Harris at 48 percent. The updated model reflected more strong poll numbers in Trump’s favor in key swing states like Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.

Pollster Nate Silver’s forecast also favors Trump, showing him with 53.8 percent to Harris’ 48.8 percent. Both forecasts take into account simulations that analyze voter behavior and state-by-state trends.