Former President Donald Trump has emerged as the favorite to win the White House in analyses by five political forecasters, signaling Vice President Kamala Harris’ luster is fading in critical states.
An update from FiveThirtyEight gives Mr. Trump a 51% chance of winning versus 49% for Ms. Harris. This is the first time their model has shown Mr. Trump winning.
“The change in candidates’ fortunes came after a slow drip-drip-drip of polls showed the race tightening across the northern and Sun Belt battlegrounds,” the forecasters said.
Nate Silver, who founded FiveThirtyEight and uses a comparable model for his Silver Bulletin blog, said Ms. Harris has a 1.6-percentage-point lead in the national polling average. Still, Mr. Trump has a 53% chance of winning the Electoral College.
The Decision Desk HQ/The Hill forecast model on Sunday gave Mr. Trump a 52% chance of winning the presidency versus 48% for Ms. Harris. The Economist’s latest statistical model shows Mr. Trump has a 54% chance of returning to the White House.
Meanwhile, the Real Clear Politics polling averages put Mr. Trump slightly ahead in the seven battleground states: Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
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The forecasters say the race remains a virtual toss-up and Ms. Harris has an edge in national polling averages. Mr. Trump’s sudden edge in electoral battlegrounds is a significant development less than two weeks before Election Day.
Ms. Harris has had a single-digit lead in major national polls since taking over the Democratic ticket from President Biden in July. Her lead in those polling averages persisted after a solid debate performance in early September.
Yet the presidency won’t be decided by the national vote. It will be won by carving a path through the Electoral College to 270 votes. Mr. Trump won the Electoral College contest in 2016 despite losing the popular vote to Democrat Hillary Clinton.
Mr. Trump’s durability in “blue wall” states such as Pennsylvania and Wisconsin is evident in how vulnerable Senate Democrats are treating their own campaigns. In some instances, they are catering to Trump voters to expand their base of support instead of aligning with the Biden-Harris agenda.
Sen. Bob Casey, Pennsylvania Democrat, released an ad that says he “bucked Biden” to protect fracking for natural gas and “sided with Trump to end NAFTA and put tariffs on China.”
An ad for Sen. Tammy Baldwin, Wisconsin Democrat, said she got “President Trump to sign her Made in America bill, and then she got President Biden to make it permanent.”
Ms. Baldwin did serve Tuesday as an opener for Ms. Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who campaigned with former President Barack Obama in Madison.
Ms. Harris’ advisers say they have no illusions about the close state of the race. They feel Ms. Harris can reach the voters she needs in the remaining days.
Mr. Trump is “going to get up to 48%” in the battleground states, Harris campaign senior adviser David Plouffe told CNN. “And so we just have to make sure we’re hitting our win number, which, depending on the state, could be 50, could be 49.5.”
Mr. Trump, Ms. Harris and their surrogates are barnstorming battlegrounds to scrounge for votes — sometimes in unlikely places.
Ms. Harris joined forces with a political opposite — former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney — in Pennsylvania to criticize Mr. Trump as a threat to democracy. Mr. Trump, an immigration hard-liner, courted Hispanics in Miami on Tuesday.
“We have a broad and diverse coalition of a united GOP, disaffected Democrats and independents, and we all know that President Trump’s common-sense agenda for working men and women is resonating,” Trump campaign senior adviser Brian Hughes said. “Data so far reflects that, but we will not stop fighting until the last vote is counted.”
Mr. Silver argued on his blog that Ms. Harris showed the right instinct in going on Fox News and seeking an interview with the “Joe Rogan Experience” podcast. He said she needs to find ways to attract “weird” voters from across the political spectrum, which Mr. Trump is adept at doing.
“Say what you want about Trump, but he’s always been willing to go after voters wherever they might be found — and however weird they are,” Mr. Silver wrote. “He secured the endorsement of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., while Biden and Harris have never seemed to have any plan for attracting Kennedy voters.”
The FiveThirtyEight model says Mr. Trump’s fortunes have risen because Ms. Harris’ 0.6-point lead in Pennsylvania on Oct. 1 morphed into a 0.2-point lead for Mr. Trump. Her leads in Michigan and Wisconsin have shrunk to tie or near-tie levels.
“While Trump has undeniably gained some ground over the past couple weeks, a few good polls for Harris could easily put her back in the ‘lead’ tomorrow. Our overall characterization of the race — that it’s a toss-up — remains unchanged,” the forecasters said.
The Decision Desk HQ forecast gave Mr. Trump a more favorable outlook because of the tightening race in Wisconsin and Michigan on top of Mr. Trump’s edge in Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina.
Prognosticators at The Economist said Republican-leaning voters have “come home” to the party’s nominee, Mr. Trump, as support for Ms. Harris remains flat.
“Just as in 2016 and 2020, the Democratic nominee is faring worse in swing-state polls than in national surveys,” the publication said. “As a result, our model now estimates that Ms. Harris needs to win the national popular vote by at least 2.5 percentage points to be favored in the Electoral College, up from 1.8 points in August.”
National polling averages from Real Clear Politics, the FiveThirtyEight model and 270 to Win show Ms. Harris ahead by less than 2 percentage points, so she wouldn’t meet the threshold needed to overcome the aspects of the Electoral College that favor Mr. Trump.
The Harris campaign sounded the alarm in a fundraising pitch on Tuesday. It said late contributions could change the momentum in four key states.
“As you read this, we are being outspent by the Trump campaign and right-wing super PACs in key battleground states such as Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, and North Carolina,” the Harris campaign said in the fundraising pitch. “If we lose these states, we lose the election.”
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
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