Voters in the US go to the polls on 5 November to elect their next president.
The election was initially a rematch of 2020 but it was upended in July when President Joe Biden ended his campaign and endorsed Vice-President Kamala Harris.
The big question now is - will America get its first woman president or a second Donald Trump term?
As election day approaches, we'll be keeping track of the polls and seeing what effect the campaign has on the race for the White House.
Who is leading national polls?
Harris has been ahead of Trump in the national polling averages since she entered the race at the end of July, as shown in the chart below with the latest figures rounded to the nearest whole number.
The two candidates went head to head in a televised debate in Pennsylvania on 10 September that just over 67 million people tuned in to watch.
A majority of national polls carried out in the week after suggested Harris's performance had helped her make some small gains, with her lead increasing from 2.5 percentage points on the day of the debate to 3.3 points just over a week later.
That marginal boost was mostly down to Trump’s numbers though. His average had been rising ahead of the debate, but it fell by half a percentage point in the week afterwards.
You can see those small changes in the poll tracker chart below, with the trend lines showing how the averages have changed and the dots showing the individual poll results for each candidate.
While these national polls are a useful guide as to how popular a candidate is across the country as a whole, they're not necessarily an accurate way to predict the result of the election.
That's because the US uses an electoral college system, in which each state is given a number of votes roughly in line with the size of its population. A total of 538 electoral college votes are up for grabs, so a candidate needs to hit 270 to win.
There are 50 states in the US but because most of them nearly always vote for the same party, in reality there are just a handful where both candidates stand a chance of winning. These are the places where the election will be won and lost and are known as battleground states or swing states.
Who is winning in swing state polls?
Right now, the polls are very tight in the seven states considered battlegrounds in this election with just one or two percentage points separating the candidates.
That includes Pennsylvania, which is key as it has the highest number of electoral votes of the seven states and therefore winning it makes it easier to reach the 270 votes needed.
In a sign of how the race has changed since Harris became the Democratic nominee, on the day Biden quit the race he was trailing Trump by nearly five percentage points on average in these seven states.
One thing to note is that there are fewer state polls than national polls being carried out at the moment so we have less data to go on and every poll has a margin of error that means the numbers could be higher or lower.
But looking at the trends since Harris joined the race does help highlight the states in which she seems to be in a stronger position, according to the polling averages.
In the chart below you can see that Harris has been leading in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin since the start of August - but the margins are still small.
All three had all been Democratic strongholds before Trump turned them red on his path to winning the presidency in 2016. Biden retook them in 2020 and if Harris can do the same this year then she will be on course to win the election.
How are these averages created?
The figures we have used in the graphics above are averages created by polling analysis website 538, which is part of American news network ABC News. To create them, 538 collects the data from individual polls carried out both nationally and in battleground states by lots of polling companies.
As part of its quality control, 538 only includes polls from companies that meet certain criteria, like being transparent about how many people they polled, when the poll was carried out and how the poll was conducted (telephone calls, text message, online, etc).
You can read more about the 538 methodology here.
Can we trust the polls?
At the moment, the polls suggest that Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are within a couple of percentage points of each other in swing states - and when the race is that close, it’s very hard to predict winners.
Polls underestimated support for Trump in both 2016 and 2020. Polling companies will be trying to fix that problem in a number of ways, including how to make their results reflect the make-up of the voting population.
Those adjustments are difficult to get right and pollsters still have to make educated guesses about other factors like who will actually turn up to vote on 5 November.
Source: BBC News
America is fucked big time if that desi cunt gets voted into the White House. The whole country will stink to high hell and this stench shall reverberate for many decades to come.
2024 US Presidential Election: Melania doesn’t want to be ‘first lady 24/7’ if Donald Trump wins - report
Melania Trump has reportedly made a deal with her husband Donald Trump ahead of the 2024 United States presidential election. Melania has apparently told the former president that she doesn't want to be a full-time first lady if he gets re-elected as the president.
A Trumpworld insider told the publication that Melania has "made a deal" with her husband that if he wins the presidency she will not have to be on "first lady duty 24/7".
According to the report, Melania is planning to spend a part of every month in New York City with her son, Barron Trump, amid speculations that he will attend New York University in the fall.
A source told the publication, "She's a hands-on mother, and is already planning to spend part of every month — and potentially every week — in NYC."
While mentioning Barron and the need for an additional adjustment to college life in case his father wins, the source added, "Barron has never been completely on his own before — and with the added stress of him being both a freshman in college and potentially the son of a president in a predominantly Democratic city, [Melania] wants to be close."
"The added attention he'll get if his father is president worries Melania who is also concerned about the reaction at his school over Barron's ever-present Secret Service," the sources said, further adding that Melania is an "extremely protective mother".
The source said that Melania "feels safe in NYC and in Trump Tower herself, and it's Barron's home, and that's why she wants him to go to school in NYC."
"She can provide both emotional and physical support by being close. Everyone remembers how she delayed moving to Washington, DC, until Barron finished school," the source added.
Trump's criminal trial was 'very hard' on Melania
Trump last month said that his historic criminal trial was "very hard" on his wife Melania, who was a notable absentee from the close family members who attended court in support of the former president.
In an interview aired on Fox, Trump said, "She's fine, but I think it's very hard for her. She has to read all this crap."
"I think it's probably in many ways, it's tougher on my family than it is on me," he added.
A jury convicted Trump on all 34 felony charges of falsifying business records in the final stages of the 2016 presidential campaign to cover up a sex scandal involving porn star Stormy Daniels.
It was the first criminal conviction of a former president in US history and means Trump is now running in the November 5 presidential election as a felon.
https://www.wionews.com/world/2024-us-presidential-election-melania-doesnt-want-to-be-first-lady-247-if-donald-trump-wins-report-736754
TRUMP WILL DEFINITELY PREVAIL. MAGAGA!!!!!!