By Domenico Montanaro, NPR
The good news keeps coming for Vice President Harris.
She has now not only made up ground in public polls in the swing states in her campaign for president, but has now actually taken narrow leads in three critical states that would put her at just enough electoral votes to win the White House, according to polling averages.
To be clear, these leads are mostly within the surveys’ margins of error, and Democratic pollsters worry that polling error could overstate Harris’ strength. Their message is one that was heard from many speakers at the Democrats’ convention last week: this is a close race, and don’t become irrationally exuberant.
NPR’s analysis now has all seven of the most closely watched swing states as toss-ups, moving all of the Sun Belt states from Lean Republican previously. NPR’s analysis in this map is not based strictly on polling, but also on historical trends and conversations with campaigns and party strategists.
In a map based strictly on the polls, Harris is now exactly at 270, the number needed to win.
For the state polling, NPR's analysis is based on an average of surveys aggregated by FiveThirtyEight and The Hill/DDHQ. If a candidate has a lead of 1 percentage point or more in an average of the two, then the state is marked as red or blue. If the margin is tighter than 1 point, then it is marked as a pure Toss-Up.
Harris has now taken a consistent, though narrow lead in the Blue Wall states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. She holds an average lead of about 3 points in Wisconsin and Michigan, but only 1 point in Pennsylvania, where both campaigns are spending the most.
In the Sun Belt, former President Donald Trump holds an almost 2-point lead in Georgia, and it is within 1 point in each of the other three: North Carolina, Nevada and Arizona.
That’s about as tight as it can get and should be no solace to either campaign, as the debates approach and early voting is just weeks away.
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