What will the US election decide and why it is so close

Never in recent American political history has the outcome of a presidential election been so doubtful – this is not a contest for the faint of heart.

While previous elections have been narrowly decided – George W. Bush's victory over Al Gore in 2000 came by a few hundred votes in Florida – there was always a sense in recent days of which way the race was heading.

Sometimes, as in 2016, the meaning is wrong. That year, polls overestimated Hillary Clinton's strength and failed to detect any groundbreaking movement in Donald Trump's favor.

This time, however, the arrows all point in different directions. Either way, no one can seriously make a prediction.

Most of the final polls are well within the margin of error, both nationally and in the seven key battleground states that will decide the election.

Based on statistics and sample sizes alone, this means any candidate could come out on top.

It is this uncertainty that worries political pundits and campaign strategists alike.

There have been a few surprises — not least one notable example: a recent respected poll in Republican-heavy Iowa that gave Harris a surprising lead.

But the key polling averages and the forecasting models that interpret them all show that this is a coin tossing contest.

Just because the outcome of this election is uncertain doesn't mean the actual outcome won't be decisive – a shift of a few percentage points one way or the other and a candidate could win all the battleground states.

If the turnout models are wrong and more women, more rural residents or dissatisfied young voters turn out to vote, that could dramatically change the final results.

There could also be surprises among key population groups.

Will Trump really make the breakthrough among young black and Latino men that his campaign predicted? Is Harris winning over a larger share of traditionally Republican suburban women, as her team hopes? Are older voters — who vote reliably in every election and tend to lean right — moving into the Democratic column?

Once we have this election in the rearview mirror, we may be able to conclusively point to a reason why the winning candidate came out ahead.

Perhaps the answer is obvious in retrospect. But anyone who says they know how things are going now is deceiving you – and themselves.

In most US states, the outcome of the presidential election is almost certain. But there are seven key battleground states that will decide this election.

However, not all battleground states are the same. Each candidate has a three-state “wall” that provides the most direct route to the White House.

Harris' so-called “blue” wall, named after the color of the Democratic Party, stretches across Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin in the Great Lakes region. It has been the subject of much political discussion since 2016, when Trump narrowly won all three traditionally Democratic states on his way to victory.

Joe Biden flipped these states in 2020. If Harris can hold it, she won't need another battleground as long as she also wins a congressional district in Nebraska (which has a slightly different system for allocating its electoral college votes). ).

That explains why she spent most of her time in these blue wall states during the final phase of the campaign, spending full days on the ground each time.

On Monday night, she held her final rally in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, at the top of the 72 steps leading to the city's art museum that Sylvester Stallone's fictional boxer Rocky climbed in the film of the same name – before narrowly losing to his opponent, Apollo Creed.

Trump's “red wall” runs along the eastern edge of the USA. It's less talked about, but just as important to his electoral chances. It begins in Pennsylvania but extends south to North Carolina and Georgia. If he carries those states, he will win by two electoral votes, no matter how the other battlegrounds vote.

That explains why he held five events in North Carolina in the last week alone.

The intersection point on each of these walls is, of course, Pennsylvania – the biggest electoral battleground. Its nickname “Keystone State” has never been more apt.

Sometimes lost in all this electoral map strategy and gameplay is the historical significance of this presidential election.

Harris and Trump hold two very different views about the United States – on immigration, trade, cultural issues and foreign policy.

Over the next four years, the president will be able to shape American government — including the federal courts — in ways that could have repercussions for generations.

The U.S. political landscape has changed dramatically over the past four years, driven by changes in the demographic makeup of both parties.

The Republican Party looked very different a decade ago than the populist party that Trump now leads, which has far more appeal to working-class and low-income voters.

The Democratic Party's base still relies on young voters and people of color, but it now relies more on the wealthy and college graduates.

Tuesday's results could provide additional evidence of how these tectonic shifts in American politics, only partially realized over the past eight years, are reshaping the U.S. political map.

And those shifts could give one side or the other an advantage in future races.

It wasn't that long ago – in the 1970s and 1980s – that Republicans were believed to have an unassailable lead in the presidency because they consistently won majorities in enough states to prevail in the Electoral College.

This election may be a 50-50 contest, but that doesn't mean this is the new normal in American presidential politics.