on November 5th American voters will head to the polls to elect the country's next president the critical question is whether the outcome will secure a second term for Donald Trump or make history with the nation's first female president the final stretch before election day will closely monitor the polls and assess how major events such as the upcoming presidential debate impact the race for the White House what do the polls say about who won the debate on Tuesday presidential candidates kamla Harris and Donald Trump met for the first time on the debate stage for a debate hosted by ABC in a series of surveys we gauged reactions among registered voters in the debates immediate aftermath finding that most who saw the debate view Harris as the Victor who is leading National polls in the months leading up to Biden's decision to drop out of the race holes consistently showed trailing former president Trump although hypothetical at the time several polls suggested Harris wouldn't Fair much better in the pole tracker chart below the trend lines show how these averages have changed since Harris entered the race and the dots show the spread of the individual poll results who is winning in Battleground States right now polls in seven swing states are so close that it's hard to say who's truly ahead there are few fewer State polls than National polls so we have less data to work with and each poll has a margin of error which means the numbers could be higher or lower currently recent polls show the two candidates within a percentage point of each other in several states that includes Pennsylvania which plays a key role because it is the most electoral votes up for grabs making it easier for the winner to reach the required 270 votes Pennsylvania Michigan and Wisconsin were all Democratic strongholds before Trump's victory in the 2016 presidential election Biden reclaimed the crown in 2020 and if Harris can do the same this year she'll be well on her way to winning the election how are these averages created the numbers we used in the graph above are averages compiled by 538 a polling analysis site owned by US News Network ABC News to create it 5 38 collected data from Individual surveys conducted by numerous polling organizations across the country and in swing states can we trust the polls currently polls show kamla Harris and Donald Trump separated by just a few percentage points nationally and in swing States making it difficult to predict a winner in such a close race polls in both 2016 and 2020 underestimated Trump support olers will try to address this in a number of ways including trying to adjust results to reflect the makeup of the voting population these adjustments are difficult to get right and pollsters still need to make educated guesses about other factors such as who will actually vote on November 5th dear visitors if you like this video don't forget to subscribe to my channel thanks for watching