Fine margins It's tight-but should the Democrats be panicking?

With days to go before polling day, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are locked in a nail-bitingly close US presidential election race, triggering pessimism among Democrats and confidence among Republicans - even though polls suggest both candidates have a near equal chance of entering the White House.

- Robert Tait

The Guardian's 10-day polling tracking average last week showed Harris, the Democratic nominee and US vice-president, maintaining the single-point advantage over her Republican rival she had a week earlier, 47% to 46%. Surveys for the seven battleground states are equally cliffhanging and provide little obvious clue as to who will reach the threshold of 270 electoral votes essential for victory.

According to poll averages, Harris leads by a single point in Michigan and by less than 1% in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Wisconsin and Nevada. Trump has a two-point lead in North Carolina and a one-point lead in Arizona. Taken at face value, the figures are no disaster for Harris and are hardly a triumph for Trump. If they match the outcome on 5 November, Harris will win a majority of votes in the electoral college.

Amid increasingly apocalyptic warnings from Harris that Trump represents fascism and dictatorshipin-waiting, her Democratic supporters have emitted an air of panic in recent days.

"A growing number of top Democrats tell us privately they feel Vice-President Kamala Harris will lose - even though polls show a coin-toss finish," Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei wrote in Axios last Friday.