Kamala Harris and Donald Trump will meet on Tuesday, September 10, to debate in Philadelphia, in the decisive state of Pennsylvania. Two days before their highly anticipated televised duel broadcast on ABC, in the run-up to the American presidential election on November 5, the Democratic candidate and the Republican candidate for the American presidential election remain neck and neck in new polls broadcast on Sunday, September 8.
This latest series of opinion polls shows that the 78-year-old Republican billionaire remains in a position to become president of the United States again in January 2025, despite his legal troubles and the chaos that surrounded his departure from the White House in 2021. For her part, Kamala Harris, who remobilized the Democratic camp after her late entry into the campaign to replace Joe Biden, is also in a position to win according to these polls.
An election that is being played out on a wire
Nationally, Donald Trump is just one point ahead of the vice president of the United States (48% against 47), according to a study New York Times/Siena College conducted from September 3 to 6. But this gap is too narrow to establish a trend. Especially since the American election is decided by indirect universal suffrage and the whole issue is concentrated on a handful of key and highly contested states to obtain the majority of the electoral college that will designate the future president.
But here too, the suspense is total according to this same poll: Kamala Harris, who went from being an unassuming vice-president to a confirmed candidate in just a few weeks, is slightly ahead of Donald Trump in Wisconsin (50 to 47), Michigan (49/47) and Pennsylvania (49/48). The candidates are tied (48/48) in Nevada, Georgia, North Carolina and Arizona.
According to another CBS News/YouGov study, also conducted from September 3 to 6 and published Sunday, the election is down to a hair’s breadth in Michigan (50/49 for Harris), Wisconsin (51/49) and Pennsylvania (50/50). The uncertainty is also reinforced by the caution surrounding the results of polls, which had underestimated the vote in favor of Donald Trump in 2016, when the businessman and former reality TV star upset all predictions by winning by a hair’s breadth against Hillary Clinton, who was the clear favorite.
Trump’s legal victory
Donald Trump, who presents himself as the champion of downgraded Americans who are victims of inflation, is approaching Tuesday’s televised duel (Editor’s note: Wednesday at 3 a.m. in France) after having recorded an important legal victory: the postponement until November 26, 2024, after the vote, of the pronouncement of his sentence in the case of hidden payments to a porn star during the 2016 presidential campaign for which he was found guilty at the end of May by twelve New York jurors.
This decision, handed down on Friday, September 6 by the trial judge, Juan Merchan, means that American voters will not know, when they cast their ballot, what sentence their hypothetical future president will receive.
Donald Trump has experience on his side: he has already participated in six presidential debates, including the memorable one against Joe Biden last June. The Democrat lost his footing in front of millions of viewers. Kamala Harris had her moment of glory by attacking a certain Joe Biden during a Democratic primary debate in 2019.