Harris or Trump In Closest-ever Race For White House

By Deepak Arora

NEW YORK, Nov 4: The D-Day for the 2024 presidential election is almost there. 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.

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).

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

In a surprise in Iowa, a new Des Moines Register poll conducted October 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.

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.

The same websites have polling averages in the seven battleground states (called Swing 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%

"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."

Even the two tightest presidential contests of the last 65 years — John F. Kennedy vs. Richard Nixon in 1960 and George W. Bush vs. Al Gore in 2000 — weren’t this tight heading into the homestretch.

If the polls turn out to be accurate, 2024 could be the closest presidential election in modern U.S. history.

Seven swing states are expected to be key in deciding the presidential race outcome.

These key states include Pennsylvania (19 Electoral votes), North Carolina (16), Georgia (16), Michigan (15), Arizona (11), Wisconsin (10), and Nevada (6), collectively totaling 93 Electoral College votes.

A candidate needs at least 270 out of 538 Electoral votes to win the election.

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.

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

Kamala Harris ‘leaps into leading position’ in deep Red Iowa

By Deepak Arora

DES MOINES, Nov 3: Kamala Harris, US Vice President and Democratic presidential contender, defeated Donald Trump in a stunning last-minute polling update in Iowa, a crucial battleground state.

The outcome of the survey was revealed three days before Tuesday's historic presidential election.

Harris has surpassed her Republican opponent in the polls, even though there were early indications that Trump would win the crucial Hawkeye State.

The survey conducted by The Des Moines Register/Mediacom states that the US VP is currently ahead of Trump by 47% to 44%.

In the last four presidential elections, Iowa has shown a mixed record, with Barack Obama winning the state in 2008 and 2012 and Trump in 2016 and 2020.

Harris makes surprise 'Saturday Night Live' appearance with election looming

NEW YORK, Nov 3: Vice President Kamala Harris made a surprise trip to New York City on Saturday to appear on “Saturday Night Live,” briefly stepping away from the battleground states where she's been furiously campaigning in favour of the iconic sketch comedy show.

Harris departed on Air Force Two after an early evening campaign stop on in Charlotte, North Carolina. She was scheduled to head to Detroit, but once in the air, aides said she'd be making an unscheduled stop and the plane landed at LaGuardia Airport in Queens.

She was appearing in the cold open kicking off the show, her campaign confirmed, and the vice president's motorcade arrived at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in Manhattan, where SNL tapes, shortly after 8 p.m. - enough time for a quick rehearsal before the show airs live at 11:30 p.m.

It's the final SNL episode before Election Day on Tuesday. The episode's musical guest, pop star Chappell Roan, announced in September that she was voting for Harris.

Actor Maya Rudolph first played Harris on the show in 2019 and has reprised her role this season, doing a spot-on impression of the vice president, including calling herself “Momala,” a reference to the affectionate nickname that her stepchildren call her.

Rudolph opened the show's season premiere with the line: “Well, well, well. Look who fell out of that coconut tree.” And she's joked about keeping President Joe Biden in his place.

Harris' husband, second gentleman Doug Emhoff, has been played by former cast member Andy Samberg and Biden is played by Dana Carvey, who also famously played then-President George H.W. Bush in the early 1990s.

Rudolph's performance has won critical and comedic acclaim - including from Harris herself.

“Maya Rudolph - I mean, she's so good,” Harris said last month on ABC's “The View.” “She had the whole thing, the suit, the jewelry, everything!” Harris added that she was impressed with Rudolph's “mannerisms."

Jason Miller, a senior adviser to former president and Republican nominee Donald Trump, expressed surprise that Harris would appear on SNL given what he characterized as her unflattering portrayal on the show. Asked if Trump had been invited to appear, he said: “I don't know. Probably not.”

Politicians nonetheless have a long history on SNL, including Trump, who hosted the show in 2015 - though appearing so close to Election Day is unusual.

Hillary Clinton was running in the 2008 Democratic presidential primary when she appeared next to Amy Poehler, who played her on the show and was known for launching into a trademark, exaggerated cackle. The real Clinton wondered during her appearance, “Do I really laugh like that?” Clinton returned in 2016, while running against Trump in a race she ultimately lost.

The first sitting president to appear on SNL was Republican Gerald Ford, who did so less than a year after the show debuted. Ford appeared in April 1976 on an episode hosted by his press secretary, Ron Nessen, and declared the show's famous opening rejoinder, “Live from New York, it's Saturday Night.”

Then-Illinois Sen Barack Obama appeared alongside Poehler impersonating Clinton in 2007, and Republican Bob Dole was on the show in November 1996 -- a mere 11 days after losing that year's election to Bill Clinton. Dole consoled Norm Macdonald, who played the Kansas senator.

Then there was Tina Fey's 2008 impression of vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin - and in particular, her joke that “I can see Russia from my house.” It was so good that Fey eventually won an Emmy and Palin herself appeared on the show that October, in the weeks before the election.