US election: where things stand with one week to go

Never in modern history has a US presidential race been so tight so close to Election Day.

With just a week left, Kamala Harris will deliver her presidential election campaign's closing argument in Washington tonight, with the vice president leaning on the symbolic location to paint her rival as a threat to democracy. Meanwhile, Donald Trump has planned rallies this weekend in New Mexico and Virginia, two Democratic states where the former president is trailing.

"After $2.8 billion spent on campaigning, two assassination attempts, the withdrawal of a president from his re-election bid, two highly consequential debates and endorsements ranging from Taylor Swift to Hulk Hogan, Americans are still evenly split over who their next leader should be," said the Financial Times.

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What are the polls currently saying?

Most polls put Harris and Trump nearly neck and neck, with Harris' slight edge narrowing in Trump's favour recently – but as the winner is decided in the Electoral College, most analysts believe the election will come down to results in just a few crucial swing states. Polling averages show razor-thin margins in all seven battleground states, within a tiny margin of error.

The Republican campaign has been "buoyed by polling showing Trump in a better closing position" than this time in 2016 and 2020, said Semafor. However, "after what happened in 2020, and the 'red wave' that didn't materialise in 2022, there are more sceptics than there are optimists," said one campaign insider.

But Harris campaign aides are also "growing cautiously optimistic", said The New York Times, believing the race is "shifting in her favour". Strategists believe the campaign's emphasis on Trump as a fascist, an "expansive battleground-state operation" and "strength among female voters" over abortion rights will carry Harris to a "narrow triumph".

Internal polling puts Harris "slightly ahead" in the three northern states: Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Trump's aides believe he can win at least one; they are "particularly hopeful about Pennsylvania". Harris campaign officials believe she "remains competitive" in the four Sun Belt battleground states: Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona and Nevada.

Who has already voted?

The majority of voters will go to the polls on Election Day, but many have already cast their vote using the postal voting system or early voting. As of today, more than 43 million ballots have been cast across 47 states and the District of Columbia, according to CNN.

Pre-election voting is "down significantly" from record levels during the pandemic in 2020. Generally, Democrats prefer to cast their ballots in advance while Republicans "strongly prefer to vote on Election Day". But in a "major shift" from 2020, when the Trump campaign warned against pre-election voting, the Republicans are trying to encourage it.

When might we know the final result?

Generally, Americans can expect "relatively quick race calls for elections", said The Hill. In the past few decades all have been "called" by the morning after the election, except for 2000 (delayed for weeks because of a recount in Florida).

The 2020 election marked a "sharp difference" from the norm; the public had to wait almost five days before "most major news outlets" could call a result, due largely to delays processing the "historic increase" in postal voting caused by the pandemic.

Since then, almost all states have changed their policies to allow envelopes for postal votes to be processed ahead of Election Day, and about half allow machines to scan the ballot papers as long as the results aren't aggregated, according to a recent report by the Center for Election Innovation & Research. Fewer postal votes this year should "speed the process up", said The Hill.

If the election comes down to Pennsylvania and Wisconsin (neither of which allow envelope processing until Election Day), a "quick race call might be impossible". Ultimately, just how close the race is may decide "how long the country is holding its breath".

Most voters think Trump will not concede the election even if he loses, according to a CNN poll conducted by SSRS of 1,704 registered voters across the US. A "sizeable minority of his backers" say that losing candidates "have no obligation to do so".