With less than six weeks until Election Day, voting is progressing rapidly.
Vice President Harris is seeing mostly positive poll results this week, but there are some caveats.
The average national poll maintained by Hill and Decision Desk Headquarters (DDHQ) currently shows Harris leading former President Trump by 4.2 points. As of Friday night, DDHQ gave Harris a 56 percent chance of winning in November.
But even this discovery shows how close the race is. A 56 percent chance is slightly better than flipping a coin.
The election is almost certain to be contested in seven battleground states. Neither candidate has a lead of more than 3 points in any state, according to The Hill/DDHQ average. In three of the seven states, Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina, the difference is less than one point anyway.
Here are the key takeaways from this week's polls:
The overall picture is positive for Harris.
Although national polls have shortcomings as accurate predictive tools, they can provide broad guidance on the state of the race.
In 2016, Hillary Clinton won the national vote over Trump by more than two points, but lost the election.
Still, there is a silver lining for Harris.
The vice president rose six points in this week's Reuters/Ipsos poll, five points in the Morning Consult poll and four points in the CBS News/YouGov poll.
These results reassure Democrats that Harris' initial poll rally after winning the presidential nomination was not a sugar high that is likely to come to an abrupt end.
The countries' rankings also suggest that Ms. Harris remains at least on par with Mr. Trump in the “air war,” as both countries spend millions of dollars on each other's television ads.
Still, some polls weren't so optimistic for the vice president. A Quinnipiac University poll found them tied nationally, but a CNN/SSRS poll showed Harris with just a one-point lead.
Harris turns Southeast battleground into a true jump ball.
Harris appears to be making inroads in two of the battleground states that the Trump campaign has long been most confident of winning.
Trump's lead in both North Carolina and Georgia is currently less than 1 percentage point, according to The Hill/DDHQ average. They lead North Carolina by six-tenths of a point, and Georgia by just two-tenths of a point.
A Bloomberg/Morning Consult poll shows Harris with a two-point lead in North Carolina and tied in Georgia.
This is important for various reasons.
First, both states are among the reddest of the battleground states. North Carolina is the only state out of seven swing states won by Trump in 2020. Biden won Georgia, the first Democrat to do so since former President Clinton in 1992.
Second, two southern states could become truly competitive, widening Harris' path to the White House. If she can do both, she could even afford to lose Pennsylvania, the largest of the battleground states. In that scenario, barring major upsets elsewhere, North Carolina, Georgia and Michigan would be enough for her to win the election.
Third, her relative strength in polls in southern states may indicate growing enthusiasm among black voters for a candidate seeking to be the first black female president.
A bright spot for Trump — Arizona
As Election Day approaches, the picture in battleground states is becoming clearer.
A notable bright spot for Trump is Arizona, where several polls this week show him comfortably ahead.
A USA Today/Suffolk University poll showed Trump with a 6-point lead in the Grand Canyon State, and a New York Times/Siena College poll had him with a 5-point lead.
Certainly Arizona is still competitive. Other recent polls conducted by Marist College and Fox News showed Trump with a narrow lead of 2 and 3 points, respectively.
Still, the big picture is that the Trump campaign will become increasingly confident in states that Biden won by narrow margins (just three-tenths of a point) in 2020.
It may also indicate the salience of border issues in Arizona. Harris headed to the state on Friday for a border visit, seeking to strengthen her image on the issue.
Penn State's big prize – slight advantage for Harris
Pennsylvania, which has 19 Electoral College votes, is a crucial battle in the race to win the White House.
The Hill/DDHQ average has Ms. Harris leading by 1.3 points, and the poll average maintained by Nate Silver's Silver Bulletin has her even slightly ahead.
This is good news for the vice president, but there is a big caveat.
Harris has benefited from the Bloomberg/Morning Consult polling average, with unusually good results for her in several states. In Pennsylvania, a Bloomberg poll showed Harris with a 5-point lead among likely voters. This is in sharp contrast to four other recent polls conducted in the Keystone State, each of which showed the race as a dead tie.
Pennsylvania is also the location of a major voting error in 2016. The final RealClearPolitics polling average in the state had Clinton ahead by about 2 points. In the end, Mr. Trump's actual vote share was almost 4 percentage points higher than expected, allowing him to carry the state.
For Harris, a one-point edge is better than nothing. However, its importance should not be overstated.
President Trump's economic advantage appears to be weakening
Beneath the surface of the major poll numbers, there are some signs that President Trump's previous economic dominance is eroding.
Since President Biden became the Democratic nominee, Trump's average lead on the question of which candidate will best manage the economy has halved, from 12 points to 6 points, according to a Washington Post analysis this week.
That may be because of Harris' focus on the subject, or because of widespread enthusiasm for her candidacy.
This is a notable change, given that the economy is typically the most important issue for voters.
But it's equally remarkable that Trump still maintains an advantage — just on a smaller scale.
