Each election tens of millions of Americans go to the polls to choose the president. Those votes are tallied and certified by the Electoral College. The winner of the most electoral votes is declared the president. There are a number of reasons why a particular candidate might win or lose, but the most significant is the popular vote. In recent decades it has become commonplace for a presidential candidate to win the majority of popular votes but still lose the election.
This year Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are competing to be the Democratic and Republican nominees for president. They are locked in a tight race, which was set to become even tighter after the first and possibly only debate.
Both candidates are working hard to win the coveted delegates who will be their party’s representatives at the national conventions where they will be nominated for president. Delegates are chosen through a series of primaries and caucuses. Depending on state rules many of these delegates are bound by party to their assigned candidate and can only be freed from that commitment in a specific amount of time prior to the national convention.
A month before the election national polls look to be shifting toward Biden. FiveThirtyEight reports that he now leads Trump by a slight margin in their average. But those numbers are volatile and based on samples of registered voters rather than the general public. In key battleground states both candidates continue to hold leads that are within the margin of error.
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