With less than one week to the Presidential election in the US, President Donald Trump is facing a tough competition from his Democratic opposition, Joe Biden.

On Tuesday, November 3, Americans will decide who their next President would be, either voting for Trump to proceed on a second term or hand over the keys of the White House to Biden.

More than 70 million Americans have casted their votes, a pace that suggests the highest turnout in a century.

According to the United States Elections Project, Joe Biden, who was Barack Obama's vice-President and has been in US politics since the 1970s, is currently leading the US President in the national polls.

Results from the polls indicate that over half of Americans intend to back Joe Biden while Trump’s support trails this by around five or six points.

Joe Biden has been ahead of Donald Trump in most national polls since the start of the year. He has hovered around 50% in recent months and has had a 10-point lead on occasions.

It is pertinent to mention that on October 2, President Trump tested positive for COVID-19 but recovered in ‘due time’ to continue his campaign for the Presidential race.

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It is believed by many that the President is still recuperating and this might have an effect on his campaign by hampering his capacity to hold mass rallies.

Also, on Tuesday, October 27, President Trump’s campaign website was briefly taken over by hackers who defaced the site.

Tim Murtaugh, a spokesman for the Trump campaign, who confirmed the website’s defacement, said the campaign team was working with law enforcement authorities to investigate the source of the attack

He said; “There was no exposure to sensitive data because none of it is actually stored on the site. The website has been restored.”

Also, President Trump’s chance of winning the polls grows slimmer as scientists in the US seem to back Joe Biden, according to a Nature Survey of nearly 900 readers.

They identified climate change and the US response to the COVID-19 pandemic as the main issues that have influenced who they support in this election.

The US is the infection epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic in the world. It has a total number of 9, 038, 030 cases and 232, 084 deaths.

According to data from an ABC News/Ipsos poll, just 35% of Americans approved of how the President has handled the crisis.

On his own health, 72% of respondents said that Trump did not take the risk of contracting the virus seriously enough, while the same number said he failed to take the appropriate precautions when it came to his personal health.

Donald Trump and Joe Biden went head-to-head in two live TV debates. The first, on September 29, was dramatic with Trump's combative approach stamping out any chance of a real debate.

In the second debate, on October 22, it was a much more restrained and reserved President Trump on show. However, snap polls still suggested viewers thought Biden's performance was more impressive.

The CNN poll said 53% of viewers thought the Democrat had done a better job in the debate, while 39% went with Trump.

However, it is imperative to note that Hillary Clinton also led by a wide margin in the 2016 campaign, and then won the popular vote by nearly three million ballots. Despite that margin, Trump ended up being President.

The aftermath of the 2016 election means that all observers must approach the potential results of the 2020 election more cautiously. 

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