Rock Fight, but Kamala has a slim edge

You never know what events in the immediate future could influence a presidential race as close as this one, but chances are the two campaigns will engage in a tough battle that will utilize late appeals to swing voters and, most importantly, voter mobilization strategies come will determine the winner. Most likely, the one presidential debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump is all we'll get, and the one vice presidential debate is also over, and there's no sign that anything has had a lasting impact on the state of the race.

Yes, Hurricane Helene cut a terrible path through several states, including two battleground states, but as bad as it was, the storm occurred far enough before Election Day that election infrastructure and prior voting preferences should largely recover. Yes, a major war could be on the horizon in the Middle East, but the two candidates are not responding to a possible Israeli-Iranian conflict in a way that could cause votes to switch from one to the other.

While individual polls vary, as always, there is what can only be described as a stalemate between Harris and Trump, both nationally and in the battleground states. In the FiveThirtyEight national polling average, Harris currently leads by 2.8 percent (48.6 to 45.8 percent). A month ago it led with 3.0 percent. Her largest lead since running for the Democratic nomination was 3.7 percent the day after the end of the Democratic convention. Her small boost at the convention soon faded, and there is now no sign of her having any significant boost at all from her strong performance (or, if you prefer, her opponent's collapse) in the debate with Trump on September 10th have experienced. Given the perception that the Vance-Walz debate was essentially a draw, and given the scant evidence that Veep debates ever matter, there is no reason to believe the event will have any impact either.

The trend lines in national surveys also show no significant movement. The latest polls from three major networks – Quinnipiac, CNN/SSRS and New York Just-Siena – everyone shows the race is a draw. Polls that give one candidate a small advantage show the same advantage over time: They rule –economist gave Harris a three-point lead (49 percent to 46 percent) among likely voters on September 24 and an identical lead a week later.

The polls in the contested states also remain close and stable. Trump has a small but steady lead in the Sun Belt states of Arizona (currently at 1.2 percent, at 48.1 to 46.9 percent) and Georgia (at 1.1 percent, at 48.3 to 47.2). percent) and a smaller and shakier lead of 0.5 percent (48.0 to 47.5 percent) in North Carolina. Harris appears to have expanded her own small but steady lead in Nevada, the Sun Belt's other state, with a lead of 1.1 percent (47.9 to 46.8 percent) and, most notably, in a recent poll by the high-profile, but Republican-leaning Atlas Intel company. In the Rust Belt “blue wall” states, Harris has a stable, if not comfortable, lead of 1.9 percent (48.1 to 46.3 percent) in Michigan and 1.8 percent (48.5 to 46, 7 percent) in Wisconsin. In Pennsylvania she also has a smaller lead of 0.8 percent (48.0 to 47.2 percent).

All in all, Harris would have a chance if the current poll average leaders maintain their victory in the battleground states (and, as expected, Harris NE-02 and Trump ME-02 in the states where the vote is apportioned by congressional district). 276-262 majority in the Electoral College. While that's good news for Democrats, it would also be the third-smallest electoral margin in U.S. history, underscoring how fragile a margin this year is.

Much will depend on whether and how large the polling error is that underestimated Trump's votes in battleground states in 2016 and 2020, as well as nationally in 2020. That, in turn, depends on the demographic patterns of each candidate's support base, as Nate Silver recently noted:

[T]The core idea of ​​the survey is that there is some degree of racial discrimination Depolarization. Harris is doing slightly better with white voters than Biden did four years ago, but worse with black, Hispanic and Asian American voters. That's why, for example, polls narrowly predict Trump will win in Georgia, while Harris will extend Biden's lead in places with large white voters like Wisconsin or Nebraska's 2nd Congressional District.

Overall, there are very close races in all of the contested states, and nationally the race is close enough that it's hard to say that either candidate has an advantage. At this point, you'd probably like Harris' chances a little better (she currently has a 57 percent probability of winning in Silver's complex forecasting model), especially because she has invested heavily in traditional voter mobilization efforts while Trump has diverted resources into watching polls and other post-election efforts to build the case for reversing the result. But while anything could happen, there is no reason to expect an upheaval in the polls before Election Day.