Kamala Harris the slight favorite to win US election as she narrowly leads in key states

Carolyn Kaster/AP by Adrian Beaumont, The University of Melbourne The US presidential election will be held on November 5. In analyst Nate Silver’s aggregate of national polls, Democrat Kamala Harris leads Republican Donald Trump by 49.3–46.0 – a slight widening of the competition since last Monday, when Harris led Trump by 49.2–46.2. President Joe Biden’s final position before his withdrawal as Democratic candidate on July 21 was a national poll deficit against Trump of 45.2–41.2. There will be a debate on Tuesday evening US time between the vice-presidential candidates, Democrat Tim Walz and Republican JD Vance. Vice-presidential debates in previous elections have not had a significant influence on the contest. The US president isn’t elected by the national popular vote, but by the Electoral College, in which each state receives electoral votes equal to its federal House seats (population based) and senators (always two). Almost all states award their electoral votes as winner-takes-all, and it takes 270 electoral votes to win (out of 538 total). The Electoral College is biased to Trump relative to the national popular vote, with Harris needing at least a two-point popular vote win in Silver’s model to be the Electoral College favorite. In Silver’s polling...