With 14 days to go until the election, voter registration has closed in the key battleground state of Pennsylvania, where polls are currently very close.
Registration ended on Monday with more than 9 million people in Pennsylvania registered to vote in the November 5 election, according to the most recent data from the Department of State.
This was 2,000 registrations shy of the 9,090,962 who signed up to vote in the 2020 general election.
However, while Monday was the last day to register to vote in person or online, voters still have until Tuesday October 29 to request a mail-in ballot. So far more than 1.8 million mail-in ballots have been requested for the 2024 election in Pennsylvania, local TV station WGAL reported.
Polls show that the race is now virtually neck and neck. However, Donald Trump now has a slight edge over Kamala Harris.
Trump was leading President Joe Biden in Pennsylvania before Biden exited the race in July. Since then, Harris has held a slight edge, but as of early Monday the Republican nominee was leading by a slim margin—0.3 points. According to polls averager FiveThirtyEight, Trump holds 47.9 percent support in the state, while Harris stands at 47.6 percent. The pollster also now forecasts a Trump victory in the state.
Meanwhile, pollster Nate Silver’s tracker shows that Harris and Trump are now tied in the Keystone State on 48 percent each. RealClearPolitics’ forecast shows that Trump is ahead by 0.8 points after overtaking Harris on October 7.
Newsweek has contacted the Harris and Trump campaigns for comment via email.
Trump’s lead comes as four of the most recent polls to come out of the state have shown him in the lead or the two candidates tied.
Charles Rex Arbogast/AP
An AtlasIntel poll, conducted between October 12 and 17, put him 3 points ahead, on 50 percent to Harris’ 47 percent, among 2,048 likely voters—a lead outside of the poll’s 2-point margin of error.
Two other polls, conducted by the Trafalgar Group and Quantus Insights between October 17 and 20, put his lead at around or within the margin of error, at between 2 and 3 percent.
A Redfield and Wilton Strategies poll conducted between October 16 and 18 showed the two candidates tied among 1,256 likely voters.
Meanwhile, other recent polls conducted by the Bullfinch Group, Morning Consult and the New York Times and Siena College between October 7 and 17 have shown Harris leading by between 1 and 4 points.
Pennsylvania, which has 19 electoral votes, is seen as pivotal in securing victory in November. The state has voted for the overall winner in 48 out of 59 of the last elections.
Harris needs 44 electoral votes from toss-up states to secure victory, while Trump requires 51. But without Pennsylvania, it is unlikely Harris will beat Trump.
FiveThirtyEight’s forecasts shows that she is predicted to win in Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada and Nebraska’s 2nd district, which would gain her 31 electoral votes.
Meanwhile, Trump is predicted to win in Pennsylvania, Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina, which would see him win 62 electoral votes from the toss-up states.
RealClearPolitics’ forecast shows Trump is now predicted to win every battleground states, which would see him win 312 electoral votes to Harris’ 226.
Nonetheless, the race remains a toss-up, according to Nate Silver, who described the election Sunday as “extremely close.”
According to FiveThirtyEight, Harris leads Trump by 1.8 points nationally, while Silver’s tracker has her up by 1.6 points. Silver’s current forecast gives Trump a 52.7 percent chance of winning, compared to Harris’ 47 percent.
