Final Presidential Polls: Trump Closes Gap In Key States

Be afraid. Be very afraid. The dueling messages of fear voiced by the Donald Trump and Joe Biden presidential campaigns warn that one way or the other, if the wrong guy wins, you should fear the particular American way of life you hold dear will come to an end. The latest polls show President Trump may have good reason to be afraid himself as Biden is leading nationally and in many swing states.

The Biden campaign and the former vice president's supporters, however, fear the 3-to-4-point margins of error in most of those swing-state polls make the race too close for comfort and complacency.

Election Day math shows Trump still has a path to victory, and that makes Democrats fearful they will see a repeat of 2016 when Democrats won the popular vote but lost in the Electoral College. For their part, Trump supporters — stoked by the president's unsubstantiated accusations of early voter electoral fraud — are afraid the Democrats will steal the election in the dark of night.

Add in the fear wrought by the global coronavirus pandemic, voter intimidation by armed militia at polling places, and the threat of election-related civil unrest, and you've got one anxiety-ridden, fearful populace tired of the polls and in desperate need of real vote totals.

FiveThirtyEight's final forecast, based on a wide-ranging amalgam of reputable polls, shows Biden has a 90 percent chance of victory and will win the popular vote by 8 percentage points.
Analysts of all political stripes say the hopes and fears of both campaigns ride on Pennsylvania and its 20 Electoral College votes.

As of Election Day, Biden leads in the RealClear Politics polling average for Pennsylvania by 1.2 points.

That's anything but clear, however.

The Susquehanna poll shows Trump leading by 1 point, with a 4.3-point margin of error.

Rasmussen Reports puts Biden up by 3, with a 3.5-point margin of error.

The NBC News/Marist poll, with its 4.4-point margin of error, has Biden up by 5 points.

Insider Advantage, also with a 4.4-point margin of error, shows Trump leading by 2 points.

Three weeks ago, back on Oct. 12, Biden led by 7.3 points in the RCP polling average.

The uncertainty is nerve-wracking for both campaigns and their supporters. What's more, Pennsylvania won't begin to count most of its record-setting early votes until Wednesday. Of the 99.1 million eligible voters who cast a ballot early across the country, more than 2.4 million of them were in Pennsylvania. Counting votes here could run through Friday.

Republicans registered more than 200,000 new Pennsylvania voters this season, almost twice as many as Democrats. With the Trump campaign threatening lawsuits to stop the counting of early votes, Democrats are fearful an election crisis could erupt in the state where both our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution were signed.

To underscore the importance of Pennsylvania, both campaigns spent time here in recent days. On Election Day, Biden went to church in the morning and then traveled to his birthplace of Scranton, with two of his grandchildren in tow. He ends the day in Philadelphia.

“These are the only two of my grandchildren who have never been to Scranton," Biden told reporters. "So we’re going home.”

While in Scranton, he visited his childhood home, where he signed the living room wall: "From this house to the White House with the grace of God. Joe Biden 11-3-2020."

In addition to narrowing the gap in Pennsylvania, Trump this week chipped away at Biden's leads in North Carolina and Arizona

The final RealClear Politics average in North Carolina, with 15 electors, puts Trump ahead by just two-tenths of a point. Four days ago, Biden was up by 2.3 points.

In Arizona, with 11 electors, the race has been a dead heat since Oct. 29. As of Nov. 3, Biden leads by just nine-tenths of a point.

As Election Day neared, the fear of losing ground and not getting enough turnout compelled Trump and Biden to swing through several other up-for-grabs battleground states, too — Florida, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, even Georgia and Texas.

The polls show Biden narrowly ahead everywhere but Ohio and Texas, but all within the margin of error.

For Trump to have a chance at prevailing in the Electoral College, most of these big states and their 173 collective Electoral College votes must land in his column. He hopes a flurry of big MAGA rallies will do the trick, and in the last week he's staged 17 such events in these states.

Trump made his last campaign appearance in Grand Rapids, Michigan, late Monday and was still onstage after 1 a.m. Tuesday. He appeared with the rapper Lil Pump. The president mistakenly referred to the rapper as "Little Pimp," and introduced him as "one of the big superstars of the world."

Reminiscing about his surprise 2016 win, Trump predicted "another beautiful victory."

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This article originally appeared on the White House Patch