In just a few short weeks the next leader of the United States will be selected after an unprecedented campaign by both major parties that has left voters with a bit of whiplash.
Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris have both been busy on the campaign trail as the clock ticks down to election day. Both candidates have visited communities devastated by Hurricanes Helene and Milton while holding rallies to persuade any undecided voters to cast their ballot for them.
This incredibly tight race is going to be a battle until the end. Here’s a look at what the polls look like this week and what is still to come in the next few short weeks ahead of Election Day.
Who’s winning the presidential election polls?
When political pundits say this is a tight race, it is a tight race.
Monday’s Real Clear Politics average of national polls has Harris leading Trump by 1.7 percentage points. This is within the margin of error for many surveys.
The same average also has Harris narrowly ahead of Trump in some key battleground states like Pennsylvania (1%) and Wisconsin (.3%).
In Tennessee, a new poll from the conservative Beacon Center of Tennessee of 1,200 likely Tennessee voters conducted Sept. 27 to Oct. 8, shows Trump having a comfortable lead over Harris in the state, but Harris has better standing than President Joe Biden did before he suspended his campaign in July.
Of 971 likely voters surveyed in the presidential race in Tennessee, 56% said they would vote for Trump, and 35% said they would support Harris. Harris may be behind Trump in the Volunteer state, but she outperformed Biden, with only 28% of respondents saying they’d support Biden when he was still running.
Kamala Harris Fox News interview: When and where to watch
Harris is set to do an interview with Fox News’s chief political anchor Bret Baier on Wednesday, Oct. 16, in the key battleground state of Pennsylvania, while she campaigns there. Their conversation will be prerecorded in the afternoon and will air later that night on Baier’s “Special Report” on Fox News at 6 p.m. ET.
Trump stumps in long-held blue states, cities ahead of election day
Trump’s campaign approach has taken a bit of a detour.
The former president has spent some of the last few days in the campaign cycle going to predominately blue states like California and Colorado. These rallies didn’t seem to be in hopes of swaying some voters but to bad mouth the communities he was in.
He called Aurora, Colorado a “war zone,” and claimed Venezuelan gangs were taking over that city, which Trump’s running mate JD Vance later repeated in exchange with ABC News anchor Martha Raddatz Sunday, even though the mayor of Aurora has said that these claims are “grossly exaggerated.” Trump later called California a “paradise lost,” accusing Harris of making it the state with “the most decay.”
The potshots and rallies at these states that Trump will likely lose, aren’t about swaying voters, but to send a message to his base elsewhere, according to Northeastern University political science professor Costas Panagopoulos in an interview with USA TODAY.
When do we vote for president in 2024?
The general election is on Tuesday, Nov. 5.
When does early voting start in Tennessee?
Early voting begins Wednesday, Oct. 16, and runs through Thursday, Oct. 31.
Times and locations for early voting vary by county in Tennessee. To find out where early voting precincts will be and when they will be open check with your local county elections commission, which you can find at sos.tn.gov/elections.
USA TODAY and Vivian Jones with The Tennessean contributed to this report.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Who is winning the presidential race? The latest Trump-Harris polls
