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The presidential election on 5 November is set to be the tightest race since at least 2000.

Kamala Harris currently holds a slender lead over Donald Trump, according to the latest polls.

Harris leads Trump by 2.2 points

But the US election is not all about who wins the most votes overall, it’s about who wins in the right states.

How does the US election work?

If we add up the votes in “safe” states that the candidates probably don’t need to worry about so much, Harris is on 225 electoral college votes and Trump on 219, in their race to 270.

Of the 94 votes left in the eight crucial swing states where the races are tight, Harris needs 45 to win the presidency and Trump needs 51.

Harris is currently leading in all of those.

You can watch live coverage of the debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump from midnight tonight on Sky News, on web and on mobile

Harris currently leads in all swing states

But Harris’s leads are narrow. All it takes is for Trump to turn fortunes around in Pennsylvania (19 votes), North Carolina (16) and Georgia (16) and he will reach exactly the 51 he needs to win.

Despite being behind in the polls, Trump is the bookies’ favourite, reflecting a belief among punters that there’s a lot of movement to look out for in the remaining weeks of the campaign.

Predict who you think will win in each swing state and we’ll tell you who the president will be if you’re right.

Safe and swing states

Swing states

We can already be fairly confident of the result in lots of states. California and New York for example have voted Democrat at every election for the past 30 years.

Texas is the same the other way around – they haven’t voted for a Democrat since Jimmy Carter in 1976, almost 50 years ago. Only five states changed hands in 2020.

DC has the longest unbroken streak of voting for the same party

That’s why those eight states that could go either way are so very important.

If Trump doesn’t win in Pennsylvania, his route to victory becomes increasingly narrow – he would need to win at least four of the six biggest remaining states.

If he does win there, however, he can become president with just two others.

There is no recent polling in Nebraska’s second district by pollsters recognised by our US partners NBC News, but that single electoral vote could make all the difference if other states go a certain way.

If Trump wins Pennsylvania, Georgia and Michigan and loses North Carolina, Arizona, Wisconsin and Nevada, he would be stuck on 269 – Nebraska 2nd would take him over the line.

What happens if it’s a tie in the electoral college?

How does the US election work?

Each of the fifty states, plus Washington DC, holds their own vote for president which is independent from the others.

Each state is worth an amount of “electoral college votes” – effectively points – related to the population of the state.

California, the most populous US state, has 54 electoral college votes representing their 39 million population.

Wyoming, the smallest US state, has three electoral college votes representing their 600,000 population.

There are 538 “points” in total. To become president, a candidate must get to 270 (more than half). It doesn’t matter what combination of states gets them there, but some routes are easier than others.

In most states – all except Nebraska and Maine – the winning candidate in a state gets all of the electoral votes available.

So if Donald Trump was to win Florida by a single vote, he would get all 30 of their electoral college votes, the same as if he got 100% of the popular vote there.

In Nebraska, two votes are allocated to who wins the state overall, and one each to the candidate who wins in three districts of Nebraska – making five overall. It’s the same in Maine but there are only four electoral college votes up for grabs there, so its other votes are split across two districts rather than three.

Who is the bookies’ favourite?

We’ve mostly spoken about the polls so far, but there’s another often overlooked way to gauge the potential outcome of the election – by looking at where people are putting their money.

Betting markets, unlike polls, are driven by people willing to back their predictions with real money. This means they reflect not just today’s opinions but also the collective wisdom of people who are invested in the outcome about how things might change going forward.

Sky News is tracking the odds of Kamala Harris and Donald Trump winning the 2024 election. We’ve translated the odds into percentages to reflect the implied probability of each candidate’s victory.

The percentage refers to the candidates’ overall chance of winning, by whatever margin, not an implied vote share or electoral college split.

Who is the people’s favourite?

Sometimes it’s not about policy but just about whether you like one candidate more than another.

Americans are more likely to find Donald Trump unfavourable than favourable, but he has had a recent (relative) jump in popularity.

It’s the reverse for Harris at the moment – she had a brief bounce after becoming the official candidate, but has since dropped to a level close to Trump’s new high.

Harris's and Trump's favourability is similar

As the election approaches, keep an eye on all these trackers to see the polls and betting markets’ predictions evolve, and what they reveal about where the race to become president is going.


The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling, we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.

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UK and US announce trade deal to save thousands of British jobs, Starmer says

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UK and US announce trade deal to save thousands of British jobs, Starmer says

The UK and US have agreed a trade deal, with Sir Keir Starmer and Donald Trump confirming the announcement during a live televised phone call.

It is the first trade deal agreed after Mr Trump began his second presidential term in January, and after he imposed strict tariffs on countries around the world in April.

Sir Keir said the “first-of-a-kind” deal with the US will save thousands of jobs across the UK, boost British business and protect British industry.

Politics latest: Trump and Starmer say trade deal just the start

The deal includes:

• Lowering 27.5% tariff on British car exports to the US to 10%, affecting 100,000 vehicles each year

• UK steel and aluminium industries will no longer face any tariffs after they had 25% duties placed on them

• Beef exports allowed both ways

• UK to have “preferential treatment whatever happens in the future” on pharmaceuticals, the president said.

However, there is a still a 10% tariff on most UK goods imported into the US after Mr Trump imposed that duty on most countries’ exports last month.

Mr Trump said the “final details” of the agreement were still being “written up”.

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Watch full call with Trump and Starmer

Trade minister Douglas Alexander told parliament the UK has “committed to further negotiations on tariff reductions”.

MPs will be able to debate the deal and any legislation needed to implement it, he added.

Sir Keir said “this is a really fantastic, historic day” that will “boost trade between and across our countries”, while Mr Trump said the agreement would be a “great deal for both countries”.

The president said the deal will make both the UK and the US “much bigger in terms of trade” as he thanked Sir Keir, who he said has been “terrific for his partnership in this matter…we have a great relationship”.

Sir Keir said it was achieved by not playing politics, and insisted the UK can have good trade relations with both the US and the EU.

Red lines on beef and chicken

The PM said the UK had “red lines” on standards written into the agreement, particularly on agriculture.

Mr Alexander told the Commons: “Let me be clear that the imports of hormone-treated beef or chlorinated chicken will remain illegal.

“The deal we’ve signed today will protect British farmers and uphold our high animal welfare and environmental standards.”

Read more:
UK and India strike ‘historic’ trade deal

Starmer faces rebellion from Labour MPs over welfare reforms

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Sky challenges Trump on trade deal

‘American beef is the safest’

US agriculture secretary Brooke Rollins said the deal will “exponentially increase our beef exports”, and added: “To be very clear, American beef is the safest, the best quality, and the crown jewel of American agriculture for the world.”

On whether the UK will have to accept all US beef and chicken, Mr Trump said: “They’ll take what they want, we have plenty of it, we have every type, we have every classification you can have.”

Hinting the US will move towards higher welfare practices, he said US health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr “is doing a tremendous job and he’s probably heading toward your system with no chemical, no this, no that”.

‘A Diet Coke deal’

Previous UK governments have attempted – and failed – to secure a free trade agreement with the US, but Sir Keir had made it a high priority.

Conservative shadow trade secretary Andrew Griffith chastised the deal, saying the UK is still in the same category as Burundi and Bhutan.

“It’s a Diet Coke deal, not the real thing,” he told the Commons.

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Man accused of harassing Jennifer Aniston for two years before crashing car through gates of her home

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Man accused of harassing Jennifer Aniston for two years before crashing car through gates of her home

A man has been charged after allegedly harassing Hollywood actress Jennifer Aniston for two years before crashing his car through the front gate of her home, prosecutors have said.

Jimmy Wayne Carwyle, of New Albany, Mississippi, is accused of having repeatedly sent the Friends star unwanted voicemail, email and social media messages since 2023.

The 48-year-old is then alleged to have crashed his grey Chrysler PT Cruiser through the front gate of Aniston’s home in the wealthy Bel Air neighbourhood of Los Angeles early on Monday afternoon.

Prosecutors said the collision caused major damage.

Police have said Aniston was at home at the time.

A security guard stopped Carwyle on her driveway before police arrived and arrested him.

There were no reports of anyone being injured.

More from Ents & Arts

Carwyle has been charged with felony stalking and vandalism, prosecutors said on Thursday.

He also faces an aggravating circumstance of the threat of great bodily harm, Los Angeles County district attorney Nathan Hochman said.

Carwyle, who has been held in jail since his arrest on Monday, is set to appear in court on Thursday.

His bail has been set at $150,000 dollars (£112,742).

He is facing up to three years in prison if he is convicted as charged.

Read more from Sky News:
Ex-police officers cleared of murdering motorist
Woman killed by alligator in Florida lake
Motown legend accused of sexually assaulting housekeepers

“My office is committed to aggressively prosecuting those who stalk and terrorise others, ensuring they are held accountable,” Mr Hochman said in a statement.

Aniston bought her mid-century mansion in Bel Air on a 3.4-acre site for about 21 million dollars (£15.78m) in 2012, according to reporting by Architectural Digest.

She became one of the biggest stars on television in her 10 years on NBC’s Friends.

Aniston won an Emmy Award for best lead actress in a comedy for the role, and she has been nominated for nine more.

She has appeared in several Hollywood films and currently stars in The Morning Show on Apple TV+.

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Tyre Nichols death: Ex-police officers found not guilty of murdering motorist in US

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Tyre Nichols death: Ex-police officers found not guilty of murdering motorist in US

Three former police officers in the US have been found not guilty of murder over the death of motorist Tyre Nichols.

Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley and Justin Smith were acquitted by jurors following a nine-day trial at Tennessee state court.

The former Memphis officers were also found not guilty of aggravated assault, aggravated kidnapping, official misconduct and official oppression.

Mr Nichols, a father of one, died three days after officers punched, kicked and hit him with a baton in January 2023 as he was just yards from his home.

Former Memphis Police Department officers Demetrius Haley, center, Tadarrius Bean, left, and Justin Smith Jr., right, hug each other after they were acquitted of state charges, including second-degree murder, in the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols after he ran away from a traffic stop. Wednesday, May 7, 2025, in Memphis, Tenn. (Chris Day/Commercial Appeal/USA Today Network via AP, Pool)
Image:
The defendants hugged each other after being acquitted of the charges. Pic: Commercial Appeal/USA Today Network/AP

The 29-year-old’s death and a video of the incident – in which he cried out for his mother – sparked outrage in the US including nationwide protests and led to police reform.

Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who represents Nichols’ family, described the verdicts as a “devastating miscarriage of justice”. In a statement, he added: “The world watched as Tyre Nichols was beaten to death by those sworn to protect and serve.”

Memphis District Attorney Steve Mulroy said he was “surprised that there wasn’t a single guilty verdict on any of the counts” including second-degree murder. He said Mr Nichols’ family “were devastated… I think they were outraged”.

From left Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Justin Smith, three former Memphis officers acquitted of state charges, including second-degree murder, in the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols after he ran away from a traffic stop in 2023. Memphis Police Dept. / via AP file
Image:
Former police officers Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Justin Smith were accused of second-degree murder. Pic: Memphis Police Dept/AP


But despite the three defendants being acquitted of state charges during the trial in Memphis, they still face the prospect of years in prison after they were convicted of federal charges of witness tampering last year.

Two other former officers previously pleaded guilty in both state and federal court. Desmond Mills Jr. gave evidence as a prosecution witness, while Emmitt Martin was blamed for the majority of the violence.

Sentencing for all five officers is pending.

Protesters march down the street Friday, Jan. 27, 2023, in Memphis, Tenn., as authorities release police video depicting five Memphis officers beating Tyre Nichols, whose death resulted in murder charges and provoked outrage at the country's latest instance of police brutality. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Image:
Tyre Nichols’ death sparked street protests in January 2023 in Memphis and across the US. Pic: AP

Video evidence showed Mr Nichols was stopped in his car, yanked from his vehicle, pepper-sprayed and hit with a Taser. He broke free and ran away before the five police officers caught up with him again, and the beating took place.

Prosecutors argued that the officers used excessive, deadly force in trying to handcuff Mr Nichols and were criminally responsible for each others’ actions.

They also said the officers had a duty to intervene and stop the beating and tell medics that Mr Nichols had been hit repeatedly in the head, but they failed to do so.

The trial heard Mr Nichols suffered tears and bleeding in the brain and died from blunt force trauma.

The defence suggested Mr Nichols was on drugs, giving him the strength to fight off five strong officers, and was actively resisting arrest.

In December, the US Justice Department said a 17-month investigation showed the Memphis Police Department uses excessive force and discriminates against Black people.

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