Before going into some of the prime movers in the final week of the campaign, it is important to emphasize that the national popular vote race is all but irrelevant. Polls that show which candidate is winning nationally may create the appearance of momentum for one candidate or the other, but because of the large margins Democrats tend to win in big population states such as CA, NY, and IL, they have an advantage in winning the popular vote. In 2016 Hilary Clinton defeated Trump by nearly 3 million votes nationally but lost the Electoral College 306 for Trump and 232 for Clinton.
Key state polls look like the national polling showing a very competitive race for the White House with nearly all the results within the margin of error. The focus of both campaigns is on the five states that went for President Trump in 2016 and flipped to Biden in 2020. These five swing states are: PA, WI, AZ, NV, and MI and polls show tight races in each state. Additionally, Democrats believe they have a chance to flip NC which was the state that former President Trump carried in 2020, but by the smallest margin of any state he won.
Both Trump and Harris are spending most of their time in the closing days of the campaign in these battleground states, though President Trump went to safely Democratic NY to have a big rally at Madison Square Gardens to deliver a strong closing argument to any remaining swing voters across the country. Similarly, Vice President Harris went to safely Republicans Texas for a rally that featured Beyonce. Both the Texas and NY rallies can give candidates a strategic boost that can help energize volunteers working on programs to get out the vote. Perhaps most importantly these headline grabbing events create news coverage that may give a candidate an edge in the closing stage of the campaign.
Senate
The Senate map continues to favor Republicans in their effort to flip the upper body. While the current Senate lineup is 51 Ds and 49 Rs, with the retirement of WV Democrat Joe Machin in the WV seat all agree it is going to flip to the Republicans leaving the Election Day count 50/50.
Of the 34 races this year 23 are currently held by Democrats and Republican only have to defend 11. Republicans are putting significant money into the states they believe they can flip. Chief among these are solid Republican states such as MT and OH. Furthermore, polling shows tough races for Democratic incumbents in PA, NV, and WI. Additionally, seats in AZ and MI, where the Democratic incumbent is not seeking re-election, are targets for Republicans.
House
While the election map favors Republicans in the Senate, the House is too close to call. Republicans are holding on to a small four seat majority with surveys showing 15 races as too close to call. Those 15 seats are divided with 8 currently held by Republicans and 7 held by Democrats.
Several of the seats Republicans need to defend are in the Democratic strongholds of CA and NY. These are seats that flipped to Republican in 2022, and helped Republicans get their majority.
From my days working on House races, I learned that very few House races use their limited resources on polling, making very little reliable House polling data available. Democrats are hoping for Presidential coattails to help their candidates in CA and NY, while Republicans hope to make up for any losses with Trump coattails in Ohio.
