Voters in America will decide on 3 November whether Donald Trump remains in the White House for another four years.
The Republican president is being challenged by Democratic Party nominee Joe Biden, who is best known as Barack Obama’s vice-president but has been in US politics since the 1970s.
As election day approaches, polling companies will be trying to gauge the mood of the nation by asking voters which candidate they prefer.
We’ll be keeping track of those polls here and trying to work out what they can and can’t tell us about who will win the election.
National polls are a good guide as to how popular a candidate is across the country as a whole, but they’re not necessarily a good way to predict the result of the election.
In 2016, for example, Hillary Clinton led in the polls and won nearly three million more votes than Donald Trump, but she still lost – that’s because the US uses an electoral college system, so winning the most votes doesn’t always win you the election.
With that caveat aside, Joe Biden has been ahead of Donald Trump in most national polls since the start of the year. He has hovered around 50% in recent months and has had a 10-point lead on occasions.
Latest polling averages in battleground states
| Arizona | 48.4% | 46.2% | Trump by 3.6% |
|---|---|---|---|
| Florida | 48.0% | 48.0% | Trump by 1.2% |
| Georgia | 47.2% | 47.2% | Trump by 5.2% |
| Iowa | 47.7% | 46.3% | Trump by 9.5% |
| Michigan | 50.4% | 41.8% | Trump by 0.2% |
| Minnesota | 48.0% | 42.0% | Clinton by 1.5% |
| Nevada | 48.3% | 43.7% | Clinton by 2.4% |
| New Hampshire | 53.4% | 42.4% | Clinton by 0.4% |
| North Carolina | 48.4% | 47.7% | Trump by 3.7% |
| Ohio | 46.2% | 46.8% | Trump by 8.2% |
| Pennsylvania | 49.6% | 45.8% | Trump by 0.7% |
| Texas | 45.4% | 48.0% | Trump by 9.1% |
| Virginia | 51.7% | 40.3% | Clinton by 5.4% |
| Wisconsin | 50.3% | 43.9% | Trump by 0.8% |
SOURCE: bbc
