Text size

Swing states, electoral votes, candidates up and down and millions of potential voters: here is the US election, broken down by the numbers.

Several independents ran — and at least one, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., found himself in a series of surprising headlines.

But in the end, the presidential race comes down to a binary choice, with the two major party candidates — Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump — trying to lead a polarized America.

November 5th – Election Day, traditionally on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November.

The number of swing states – those that do not clearly favor one party over the other, meaning they are up for debate.

Harris and Trump are courting voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, concentrating their campaign efforts there to ensure victory.

In a close election, just a handful of votes in one of these states could decide the outcome.

On Election Day, voters will not only decide who will occupy the White House, but also who will elect a new US Congress.

34 seats in the Senate and all 435 seats in the House of Representatives are up for grabs.

In the House of Representatives, members serve two-year terms. Republicans currently have the majority, and Harris' Democrats are hoping for a turnaround.

In the Senate, 34 of 100 seats are available for a six-year term. Republicans hope to overthrow the slim Democratic majority.

Welcome to the Electoral College, the indirect system of universal suffrage that governs presidential elections in the United States.

Each state has a different number of electors – this is calculated by adding the number of elected representatives in the House of Representatives, which varies depending on population, to the number of senators (two per state).

Rural Vermont, for example, only has three electoral votes. Giant California now has 54.

There are a total of 538 voters spread across the 50 states and the District of Columbia. To enter the White House, a candidate must win 270 votes.

The number of poll workers who volunteered to help ensure the 2020 election ran smoothly, according to the Pew Research Center.

There are three types of poll workers in the United States.

The majority are poll workers, whose duties include greeting voters, assisting with language briefings, setting up voting equipment, and verifying voter IDs and registrations.

According to Pew, election officials are elected, hired or appointed to perform more specialized duties such as training poll workers.

Election observers are typically appointed by political parties to watch the counting of ballots – which is expected to be particularly contentious this year as Trump refuses to accept the result unconditionally.

Many poll workers have already spoken to AFP about the pressure and threats they are facing in the run-up to the November 5 vote.

Harris' team spent $270 million on her campaign in September, while Trump's team spent much less – just $78 million, according to official filings.

According to the New York Times, Harris' campaign set the record for the largest fundraising quarter ever this fall, raising $1 billion since she entered the race following Joe Biden's withdrawal in July.

The number of Americans who will be eligible to vote in 2024, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center.

Of course, how many of them will actually cast their vote remains to be seen. However, the Pew Research Center says the 2018 and 2022 midterm elections and the 2020 presidential election produced three of the highest turnouts of their kind in the United States in decades.

“Approximately two-thirds (66%) of the eligible voter population participated in the 2020 presidential election – the highest rate in a national election since 1900,” Pew’s website says.

According to the Census Bureau, that represented nearly 155 million voters.

More than 41 million Americans had voted early as of Oct. 27, according to a University of Florida database.

Most US states allow in-person or absentee voting to help people deal with scheduling conflicts or the inability to cast a vote on Election Day itself, November 5th.

cjc-eml/st/sst/md