The people of the USA elect a new president on November 3rd.
Republican incumbent Donald Trump is running for a second term;
he is challenged by former Vice President Joe Biden of the Democrats.
Biden has been leading the nationwide polls for weeks.
The data analysts of the US website FiveThirtyEight collect the results of the numerous survey institutes and weight them based on their statistical quality.
Accordingly, Biden's lead over Trump has been at least around six percentage points for months.
However, these national polls reveal less about the likely outcome of the election than it seems at first glance.
Because the Americans do not elect their president directly, they decide on the composition of the so-called Electoral College.
This body, consisting of 538 voters, will vote on the president in mid-December.
Each state sends between three and 55 voters, depending on its population.
Almost everywhere, the winner-takes-all principle decides: the electorate each vote for the candidate who received the most votes in their state.
It doesn't matter whether the majority in the state is huge or wafer-thin.
If you want to know how things really stand in the race between Trump and Biden, you have to look at the majority relationships in the states.
In many states, the election is considered to be practically decided: the people there traditionally vote with a clear majority for the candidate of one or the other party.
For example, Biden leads in the populous states of California (55 voters) and New York (29), where the Democrats regularly win elections.
Trump is far ahead in the Republican states of Tennessee (11), Alabama (9) and Kentucky (9).
Races are tighter in some of the states.
The election results there decisively determine the balance of power in the Electoral College.
In some places the outcome of the election is completely open.
The most competitive states include:
Florida (29 voters) and Ohio (18) are classic "swing states".
In the past six presidential elections, the Democratic candidate three times and the Republican candidate three times.
In 2020, too, the polls suggest a close race.
Texas (38 voters), Georgia (16), North Carolina (15) and Arizona (11) have long been dominated by the Republicans (in some cases with exceptions in individual elections).
This time Biden's victory is not ruled out.
In 2016, Trump won the first Republican victory since the 1980s in the three industrialized states of Pennsylvania (20), Michigan (16) and Wisconsin (10) and thus the decisive electorate.
This time the polls see a head start for Biden.
This article will be updated continuously.