US presidential election remains very close

Eric Gay/AP/AAP by Adrian Beaumont, The University of Melbourne The United States 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 48.6–47.4, a gain for Trump since last Wednesday, when Harris led by 48.8–47.2. Harris’ national lead peaked on October 2, when she led by 49.4–45.9. 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). Relative to the national popular vote, the Electoral College is biased to Trump, with Harris needing at least a two-point popular vote win to be the narrow Electoral College favorite in Silver’s model. In Silver’s poll averages, Trump is now 0.3% ahead in Pennsylvania (19 electoral votes), which was tied last Wednesday. He leads in North Carolina (16) and Georgia (16) by 1.3–1.4 points and in Arizona (11) by 2.1 points. Harris leads in Michigan (15 electoral votes) by 0.7 points and in Wisconsin...