Washington DC: As the latest opinion polls that came on the eve of elections on Monday predicted that the United States presidential race may head for a tight finish between the US President Donald Trump and his Democratic rival Joe Biden shrinking, particularly in key battleground states. ALSO READ | Who Is Priyanca Radhakrishnan, New Zealand’s First Indian-Origin Minister?
Real Clear Politics, an American political news site and polling data aggregator said, Joe Biden, 77, was leading Donald Trump, 74, in the key battleground States by 2.9 percentage points, which comes within the margin of error.
As President Trump and his family have virtually carpet-bombed the key battleground states, including as many as 15 rallies by the president, Biden's lead has shrunk over the last few days.
The first family along with Vice President Mike Pence have collectively held more than 40 rallies in the last three days of the election.
Biden, his running partner Vice-President nominee Senator Kamala Harris, along with the former president Barack Obama too have ramped up their public appearances in the last few days, but it’s nowhere matching to that of the Trump campaign.
Monday, on the eve of the election, Biden was campaigning in Ohio, while Obama and Harris were campaigning in Florida and Pennsylvania respectively.
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump was holding five rallies in five key battleground states - North Carolina, Florida, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan.
Nationally, Trump as per Real Clear Politics on an average was behind by 6.5 percentage points against Biden.
Till a few days ago, Biden's lead was around eight percentage points. On Monday both the Trump and Biden Campaigns exuded confidence of winning the race on Tuesday night.
Most of the mainstream media, however, said Monday that Trump has an uphill task to win the elections, given that he continues to trail in polls in key states like Pennsylvania, Florida, Michigan, Arizona, and Wisconsin. A few outlets are saying that Texas, which has traditionally remained a GOP bastion is also in play this year.
Trump supporters argue that the poll does not reflect the ground realities and like in 2016, the president would win the election with a much stronger mandate.
Nate Silver from the important FiveThirtyEight.Com a website that focuses on opinion poll analysis, politics, economics, and sports blogging on Monday said that Trump has about 10 percent chance of winning the elections. Notably, he had gone wrong in 2016.
"As in 2016, Trump could potentially benefit from the Electoral College. Projected margins in the tipping-point states are considerably tighter than the margins in the national popular vote. More specifically, Joe Biden''s lead in Pennsylvania - the most likely tipping-point state, according to our forecast - is solid but not spectacular: about 5 points in our polling average," Silver wrote.
Nate Silver said that if Biden wins the popular vote by 2 to 3 percentage points, the Electoral College is roughly a toss-up. But if Biden wins the popular vote by less than 2 points, Trump is a heavy favorite to win the election, he wrote.
"Even popular vote margins of up to 6 points are not entirely safe for Biden if his votes are distributed in exactly the wrong way. So you can see why an 8- or 9-point lead in the popular vote shouldn't make Biden feel that secure; despite being a landslide margin, it's also only a few points removed from the inflection point where the Electoral College starts to become competitive," he argued.
According to The New York Times, if the polls are right, Joe Biden could post the most decisive victory in a presidential election in three and a half decades, surpassing Bill Clinton's win in 1996. "That’s a big "if."," it said.
"The indelible memory of 2016's polling misfire, when Donald J. Trump trailed in virtually every pre-election poll and yet swept the battleground states and won the Electoral College, has hovered over the 2020 campaign. Mr. Biden's unusually persistent lead has done little to dispel questions about whether the polls could be off again," said the daily.
"President Trump needs a very large polling error to have a hope of winning the White House. Joe Biden would win even if polls were off by as much as they were in 2016," it said.
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