Who Is Favored To Win The 2024 Presidential Election?

Our latest forecast shows a toss-up race between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump. Harris has a 55-in-100 chance of winning the majority of Electoral College votes, according to our model on Tuesday, Sept. 24 at 6 p.m. Eastern. That’s barely better than a coin flip! Slim margins in the swing states make this cycle’s presidential race the closest in decades — the outcome could be closer than in any election in nearly 150 years.

Our update reflects tightening in both state and national polls. This Monday’s surveys from The New York Times/Siena College shifted our priors away from the big post-debate bounce that had been evident for Harris in other mid-to-late September polls. And on Tuesday, polls from Quinnipiac University and YouGov showed a race tighter than in their last readings. Our model is also picking up moderate mode effects now in online polls, discounting Harris by about a point in the polls that she appears to be doing systematically better in compared to other modes. All that adds up to a close race — and one where it’s important to look at all the new data and shifting trends carefully and seriously.

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