Who Is Favored To Win The 2024 Presidential Election?

Vice President Kamala Harris continues to lead former President Donald Trump in national polls and in the swing states, but her margin has slipped modestly over the last two weeks. On Aug. 23, our polling average had Harris up on Trump by 3.7 percentage points. Her margin today is a comparatively lower +3.2. As the polls have gotten closer, Harris’s probability of victory in our election model has also slipped, from 60-in-100 last week to 56-in-100 today.

National polls released over the weekend showed a mostly steady race versus two weeks ago. An ABC News/Ipsos poll came in at Harris +6 among likely voters, the same result as the last poll from ABC and Ipsos. But state polls showed Trump gaining between a quarter and half a point on margin, on average. However the new polls were mostly from partisan firms or those with a lower 538 pollster rating, which receive a low weight in our forecast. Our model will react stronger to better-rated surveys released in the coming days/weeks.

At the same time, Harris has gained ground in our fundamentals model over the last week. Despite a somewhat poor few weeks of new economic data, our forecast of the political fundamentals has improved for Democrats as President Joe Biden’s approval rating has risen (now at the highest level since early 2023). But with fewer days left in the cycle for polls to change, our model will put less and less weight on these indicators as we approach November.

538’s forecast is based on a combination of polls and campaign “fundamentals,” such as economic conditions, state partisanship and incumbency. It’s not meant to “call” a winner, but rather to give you a sense of how likely each candidate is to win. Check out our methodology to learn exactly how we calculate these probabilities.

—G. Elliott Morris