US Election: Polls aggregation changes giving Harris miniscule lead

NEW YORK — As the nation gets ready to head to the polls, the aggregation of polls that had given Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump a slight lead, but well within the margin of error, turned to give Democratic nominee Kamala Harris an edge.

The RealClear Polling’s (RCP) aggregation that showed Trump ahead by 0.1 per cent on Sunday now has Harris up by 0.1 per cent, with 48.7 for the Democrat and 48.6 for the Republican on Monday night.

The change was fueled by a poll from the public broadcasters that gave her a 4 per cent lead over Trump.

The National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service, which are partially funded by the federal government, said her lead was 0.5 per cent above their margin of error of 3.5 per cent.

Out of the eight polls that were taken partially or fully this month and went into RCP’s calculation, two others gave Harris a 2 per cent lead, while one gave Trump a 1 per cent lead. The other four showed them tied.

In the RCP aggregations, Harris had consistently led after her nomination as the Democratic Party’s candidate replacing Joe Biden, but Trump eked out a small lead, starting October 26 till Monday.

The national total of popular votes does not matter as much as the performance in the seven swing states because of the electoral college system.

With the other states that are traditionally committed to either party, the swing states that can go to either party can decide the winner because their electoral college votes can decide which candidate goes over the 270 mark in the 538-member body.

RCP still has Trump leading in five of the seven swing states.

Trump leads with 0.5 per cent in Pennsylvania, which has 19 electoral college seats and where Harris and Trump fought a pitched battle for votes.

He is also ahead in Georgia and North Carolina with 16 seats each, and Nevada with six and Arizona with 11.

Harris leads in Wisconsin with 10 seats and Michigan,15 seats

In 2016, Democrat Hillary Clinton won nearly 3 million more votes than Trump, but lost to him because he won the majority in the electoral college, 306 to 227.