Final polls show Harris and Trump poised for photo finish

• The final polls for the 2024 presidential election season have been released.
• They show that neither Harris nor Trump broke through in swing states.
• Candidates also remain virtually bound at the national level.

This election card of the year has long been established.

Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin will likely determine whether Vice President Kamala Harris or former President Donald Trump wins.

Poll results in these seven states have been close for months. And that didn’t change with 24 hours to go.

The latest set of state-by-state New York Times and Siena College polls show Harris narrowly leading likely voters in Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina and Wisconsin, while Harris and Trump are tied in Michigan and Pennsylvania. Trump leads Harris by four points in Arizona.

Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina all States of the Sun Belt where the economy has acquired a particularly large scale. When President Joe Biden was still the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, he left Trump in Georgia and Nevada, but Harris quickly made those states competitive.

In Georgia, Harris leads 48% to 47%, according to the Times poll. She has slightly larger leads in North Carolina (48-46%) and Nevada (49-46%).

Black voters will play a key role in Georgia and North Carolina, where they make up a significant share of the electorate. Biden narrowly won Georgia in 2020, while Trump narrowly won North Carolina that same year.

In Georgia, more than 4 million voters cast ballots early, and just over a million of them were Black, according to the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office. And in North Carolina, where Democrats haven’t won the presidency since Barack Obama won in 2008, concerted effort to boost turnout in party strongholds in the Charlotte and Raleigh areas.

Latino voters will be critical in Nevada, where issues like housing affordability and inflation have driven the political debate and given Trump hope that he can flip a state that hasn’t supported a Republican presidential candidate since George Bush Jr. in 2004.

Among the northern Blue Wall states, which especially critical of Harristhere is still no clear leader on the battlefields of Wisconsin, Michigan or Pennsylvania.

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In Wisconsin, Harris leads 49% to 47%, while Michigan (47%-47%) and Pennsylvania (48%-48%) are tied in the Times poll. Harris campaigned to win support from working-class, minority and union voters in these areas. Trump sought to move some of those voters into his column, understanding that any small change in their support could prove decisive in an already tight race.

Biden won it all three battlefields of the Blue Wall in 2020.

Some Democrats are concerned that Trump could invade the Midwest again, as he did in 2016, but the new Des Moines Register/Mediacom Poll gave Harris a three-point lead in GOP-leaning Iowa, which could portend a strong showing for the vice president in the Blue Wall.

Meanwhile, in Arizona, where Latino voters will again be key, the former president’s four-point lead is his largest of the seven states surveyed by the Times.

Arizonans consistently cite the economy and immigration as their top two issues, which polls show to favor Trump, but democracy issues and reproductive rights are also top issues for voters. And the last two items are very useful for Harris.

There is also a generation gap in Arizona, which is helping Trump for now in a state that Biden narrowly won in 2020.

In a Times/Siena poll of likely Arizona voters, Harris led among voters ages 18 to 29 (55-41%) and 30 to 44 (50-44%), but Trump had an advantage among voters age 45 and older under 64 years of age (53% to 42%) and 65 years of age and older (51% to 43%).

gender gap At the same time, swing states face deep chasms in national polls. According to the final NBC News poll, Harris leads female voters by 16 points (57% to 41%). Trump led among male voters by 18 points (58% to 40%).

And with the candidates split (49% to 49%) in NBC’s final poll of registered voters, it may ultimately come down to whether more women or men vote.

Early voting in swing states so far women outvoted menbut it remains unclear whether this trend will extend into Election Day.