Tory pollster reveals why it could take days to decide victor in Trump and Harris’ knife-edge White House race

Georgia could potentially decide the 2024 US Presidential Election, with Peach State voters siding with the national victor in the past two polls.

Trump carried Georgia’s 16 electoral college votes by a margin of 179,758 in 2016.

However, the 45th President lost to Joe Biden by just 11,779 votes in 2020.

Speaking at an Ipsos fringe event at the 2024 Tory Party conference in Birmingham, Lord Hayward revealed why the election might not be decided on November 5.

He said: “Georgia decided last week to count by hand.

“So, one of the key swing states will be counting probably over several days before it gets its result.”

Georgia was at the heart of the scandal surrounding Trump's unfounded claim about winning the 2020 contest.

A series of charges were brought against the ex-President for alleged attempts to interfere in the last election after Trump was accused of calling Georgia’s top election official to plead for him “to find 11,780 votes”.

Trump pleaded not guilty to racketeering and other state charges.

He was handed a major boost earlier this month when a set of charges were dropped by Fulton County Judge Scott McAfee.

During his appearance at Ipsos' fringe event, Lord Hayward also cautioned against reading too much into polls due to the limited sample size compared to the overall population.

He said: “In fact, in terms of surveys in polling, it’s reckoned that less than 200,000 people are covered by opinion polls, when you think that’s in 350 million people, the chances of error are pretty high.”

The latest Morning Consult survey for Georgia put Trump and Harris neck-and-neck on 48 per cent.

Opinion polls nationally hand Harris a slight lead but Trump managed to win the 2016 race despite trailing Hillary Clinton in the popular vote.

Discussing the state of play ahead of November 5, Ipsos pollster Keiran Pedley said: “There’s clearly momentum for Kamala Harris, that’s absolutely obvious.

“But the thing that our colleagues in the US always say is look at who is ahead on the key issue? Number one issue for Americans is the economy, Trump still leads on that.”

Victory in November for Trump would make him just the second President to serve two non-consecutive terms in the Oval Office.

While a delay of the result might be seen as similar to 2020, the knife-edge contest on November 5 could even bear resemblance to 2000.

George W Bush eventually defeated Al Gore as the eyes of the world turned to Florida and the Supreme Court.

Bush carried the Sunshine State by just 537 votes and Gore only conceded defeat once-and-for-all on December 13 following a recount.