What would a second Trump presidency look like? Political observers — including us — have suggested that it wouldn't much resemble the first one, perhaps because the kinds of figures who checked Trump within Congress and his administration largely won't be present. Another important factor is that, even with those guardrails in place, the American presidency is incredibly powerful. Presidents make policy through their personnel selections, not only appointing roles that face Senate confirmation but also choosing a range of other advisors within the White House who will weigh in on major decisions and shape priorities. Trump's first term provides some guidance here — he often selected unconventional figures for these roles who had little relevant experience, or even any seeming commitment to the regulatory missions of the agencies they were tasked to lead.

Another other major factor is the way that Trump has talked about using the executive branch for personal and political purposes. Policymaking is always political, of course, but Trump has suggested that he might use the power of his office to punish critics and political opponents or enrich his allies. This would be different from his first term, but some signs were there, for example, in his efforts to weaponize the justice system during his presidency and undermine its legitimacy afterwards. And there were plenty of complaints about Trump using his office for business gain, such as having government officials, including foreign leaders, stay at Trump properties between 2017 and 2021.

Trump's first term also offers some clues about the direction he might take on immigration policy, as he's promised unprecedented crackdowns on both undocumented immigrants and legal immigration policies. Here, too, personnel is crucial for understanding policy: Stephen Miller, whose nativist views are well-known, was one of the key figures shaping immigration policy during Trump's presidency, and reports suggest Miller would once again play a large role in shaping policy in this area, and in helping install like-minded individuals in a second Trump term.

In the closing weeks of the campaign, members of Trump's first-term cabinet have come forward to warn voters about his anti-democratic beliefs and potential for authoritarianism should he be re-elected. John Kelly, a former chief of staff and retired four-star general, recently said Trump "falls into the general definition of fascist." Per reporting by The Atlantic, two unnamed members of his administration recalled the former president saying he "needed compared some of the rhetoric used at recent Trump rallies to historic efforts to justify authoritarian action or potential coups in the face of threats. Harris has also focused on this threat in a "closing argument" to voters, given from the same location as Trump's speech on the day of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection.

In May, 538 partnered with the nonpartisan research firm PerryUndem to speak to voters about the topic of democracy, and found that many undecided voters who were leaning toward Biden (the Democratic nominee at the time) were doing so because they worried about a second Trump term, the threat he might pose to democracy, and a repeat of Jan. 6. One voter in that focus group said they felt "democracy as we know it is dead" if Trump wins, while others called him a "demagogue." Those fears have likely only become more widespread as the campaign, and Trump's bombastic rhetoric have continued: Half of American said Trump is a fascist in an October ABC News/Ipsos poll.

Republican-leaning voters in our focus groups, on the other hand, were more worried about election integrity, with many repeating conspiracy theories pushed by Trump and other Republicans about the election or the events of Jan. 6. Lies and conspiracies about elections have continued to erode confidence in elections since then, especially as the Trump campaign has continued its false claims that noncitizens vote in the U.S.

Our focus groups underscored a theme of this election — deep partisan divides underlying similar fears about the fate of democracy. According to an October YouGov/The Economist poll on political violence and extremism, 55% of Americans think the U.S. is much more politically divided than it was 5 years ago and 25% think it was somewhat more divided. In the same poll, majorities of voters were concerned about various types of political extremism in the U.S., including 63% who were at least somewhat concerned about white-supremacist extremism, 57% concerned about right-wing extremism and an equal 57% concerned about left-wing extremism. Even more dire, 35% of Americans said they think it's at least somewhat likely there will be a civil war between Democrats and Republicans, while more than 20% said the U.S. may become a "communist dictatorship" and more than 25% it may become a "fascist dictatorship" in that same time span.

In 2020, polls overestimated Joe Biden's margin over then-president Donald Trump by about 4 percentage points in competitive states. The margin between Harris and Trump in 538's final polling averages of the 2024 race is 2 points or less — less than half the error from 2020 — in seven states: the familiar septet of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. That means that, if the polling error from 2020 repeats itself, Trump would win all seven swing states and 312 Electoral College votes.

Of course, if the polls are off, it won't necessarily benefit Trump. The direction of polling error is impossible to predict in advance, and polls have overestimated Republicans plenty of times in the past. In a scenario where the polls overestimate Trump's margin by 4 points in every state, Harris would win all seven swing states and 319 electoral votes.

Both of these outcomes — and everything in between — are very much on the table today. But are these scenarios actually likely, or more like outside possibilities? Well, that's where the work we do for our election forecasting model can be helpful. In our final presidential forecast, Trump and Harris have nearly identical odds to win the White House.

Based on how much polls have been off in the past, our election model estimates that the average polling error in competitive states this year will be 3.8 points on the margin. In other words, the model is expecting a roughly 2020-sized polling error — although not necessarily in the same direction as 2020. (In 50% of the model's simulations, Trump beats his polls, and 50% of the time, Harris does.)

Given that all seven key swing states are so close, even small polling errors in the same direction can have a big impact on who wins the election. According to the simulations from our model, there is a 60-in-100 chance either candidate wins over 300 Electoral College votes — which Harris could do by winning five of the seven swing states and Trump six out of the seven. By modern standards, I think it's fair to consider this a blowout win — given how closely divided the country is, it's relatively unlikely for either candidate to win much more than this. (Even to get to 320 electoral votes, Trump would have to win a state like Minnesota and Harris would have to win a state like Florida.)

Of course, the probability of a blowout either way depends heavily on the popular vote outcome. This is on vivid display in the chart below, which takes all the simulations from our model and buckets them by popular vote outcome:

As you can see, Trump is favored to win the election even if he loses the popular vote by 1-2 points, which is what our national polling average currently suggests. And if the national polls turn out to be underestimating him, with Trump winning the popular vote by 1-2 points, he would be favored to win in a blowout.

Meanwhile, our model reckons Harris needs to win the popular vote by 2.1 points to be favored to win the election because swing states are more Republican-leaning than the nation as a whole. And if she wins the popular vote by 4.5 points (Biden's popular-vote margin in 2020), she is favored to win in a blowout of her own.

538's Swing-O-Matic interactive shows what could happen in the 2024 election if Harris or Trump gain ground with different demographic groups — and if turnout shifts among others. To build it, we used data from the U.S. Census Bureau and several pollsters to estimate turnout and vote choice in the 2020 election sorted by five key demographic traits: age, education, sex, income and race. The starting map reflects vote preference and turnout levels from 2020's matchup between Trump and President Joe Biden, adjusted for demographic shifts since then.

Use the buttons below, or scroll down the page, to explore how hypothetical changes in vote choice and turnout among different groups could alter the outcome of the 2024 election. To get you started, we've laid out some potential scenarios of demographic swings and their outcomes, such as a potential Trump victory from non-college-educated voters and nonwhite voters shifting right:

Conversely, a potential Harris win might stem in part from older voters and white voters moving to the left:

So while we're waiting on election results, go ahead and click "Explore on your own" to create your own election scenario and play around with the electorate to your heart's content!