• 41 minutes ago
Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris are in a dead heat in national polls and the seven swing states less than a week before Election Day—but there’s a slim chance of it ending in an Electoral College tie between the two candidates, and in the rare event there is one, it would likely lead to Trump becoming president.

Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/saradorn/2024/10/31/can-trump-and-harris-tie-its-possible-heres-what-would-happen/

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Transcript
00:00Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris are in a dead heat in national polls and the seven swing states,
00:07less than a week before Election Day.
00:09But there's a slim chance of it ending in an Electoral College tie between the two candidates, and in the rare event
00:16there is one, it would likely lead to Trump becoming president.
00:20If the election ends in a tie with Trump and Harris receiving 269 electoral votes each,
00:25the House would vote to select the next president, and the Senate would pick the vice president, with the House convening on January 6th, 2025.
00:35Instead of the House holding a standard vote,
00:37each state delegation would pick a single candidate between the three who received the most electoral votes,
00:43per rules laid out in the 12th Amendment of the Constitution,
00:46meaning large states like California and Texas have as much sway as states like Wyoming.
00:53The 50 delegations would almost certainly vote along party lines,
00:56which would likely give Republicans the edge as they're favored to control the majority of state delegations after Election Day.
01:03The Senate, which is forecasted to flip to Republican control, would then vote to elect the vice president, who would need 51 votes to win.
01:11If a candidate for president is unable to secure votes from 26 delegations before Inauguration Day on January 20th,
01:18and the Senate has already selected a vice president, that person would become acting president until the House vote is settled.
01:26A 269-269 electoral college tie is considered highly unlikely.
01:33538 predicts a 1-in-300 chance.
01:36There hasn't been an electoral college tie since 1800, in the race between former President Thomas Jefferson and incumbent President John Adams,
01:44when Congress took 36 ballots to elect Jefferson.
01:48For more on this story, check out Sarah Dorn's article in the link in the description.

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