“She has an easier path to 270”: Experts disagree on who has the “advantage” 30 days before election

One month out from Election Day, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are locked in a dead heat while the Democratic and Republican Parties face one of the closest races for control of Congress in recent memory.

FiveThirtyEight’s polling average has Harris and Trump within a single point of each other in Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Nevada. No candidate leads in the average for any of the other swing-states by more than two points, with Trump leading in Georgia and Arizona by 1.3 points and 1.2 points respectively and Harris leading by 1.6 points in both Wisconsin and Michigan.

“I really do think both the presidency and the House are effectively 50-50 propositions," Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics, told Salon.

“One striking thing is that while the campaign will be raging, the schedule is clear—no debates are scheduled, for instance,” Kondik added. “Maybe there will be one, but to the extent there are dramatic new developments, they will have to develop organically as opposed to happening during a debate or some other event.”

Logan Phillips, the founder Race to the WH — one of the most accurate forecasters in 2022 — described the presidential race as “incredibly close” but with Harris enjoying a small advantage. The advantage, in Phillips’ assessment, comes down to Harris’ relatively strong position in Wisconsin and Michigan.

“She has an easier path to 270 and while the polls have gotten a little closer there’s a lot of swing voters eager for something new,” Phillips told Salon.

Phillips also noted that Democrats still suffer a structural disadvantage in the Electoral College, though probably not as large as in years past. In recent years, Democrats have shed some support in New York and California while simultaneously gaining support in more competitive states, like North Carolina. This means Harris will still likely need a national lead to win in the Electoral College, but not as big of a lead as Democrats needed in 2020, for example.

Phillips expects the final 30 days before the election to be defined by perceptions of Harris, saying that the race could hinge on the Harris campaign’s “ability to define herself versus Trump’s ability to define her.”

Harris’ campaign is also attempting to craft perceptions of the vice president in the final stretch of the race, specifically to attempt to capture the votes of Republicans disillusioned with Trump. Their strategy is exemplified in the recent event Harris had with former Rep. Liz Cheney, R- WY, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney.

"We may disagree on some things, but we are bound together by the one thing that matters to us as Americans more than any other, and that's our duty to our Constitution and our belief in the miracle and the blessing of this incredible nation," Cheney said at an event with Harris Thursday in Wisconsin.

Political strategist John Conway, who works for Republican Voters Against Trump, told Salon he sees this as a winning strategy. 

“These are going to be razor-thin margins and the winning margins for Kamala Harris are going to be center-right voters,” Conway said. “We do focus groups every week with these center-right swing voters and we’ve seen that the bottom was falling out after the debate with Joe Biden. Harris reassembled the Democratic coalition and for these center-right swing voters who are on the fence they've been willing to hear her out.”

Other political strategists have indicated that at the same time Harris is appealing to Republicans she has been losing support among younger voters and Latinos, two core parts of the Democratic base.

Conway said that he thought that Democratic partisans would still come out on Election Day, owing to the fact that Trump is on the ballot and that the best thing that could happen over the next month would be for voters to see a lot of both Trump and Harris.

“The more voters see Donald Trump the less they like him and the more voters see of Kamala Harris the more they like her,” Conway said. “I think it’s the right strategy for Kamala Harris to persuade these center-right swing voters and I think it’s a false choice to say the campaign will hurt Democratic turnout.”

In terms of the battle for the Senate, Democrats are holding out fairly well despite the fact that they are defending five seats in Nevada, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Ohio and Montana and running candidates in two swing states: Arizona and Michigan.

In the battleground seats Democrats are defending, they consistently lead in polling in Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and Sen. Sherrod Brown leads in most polls of Ohio. In Arizona polls, Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., leads Republican challenger Kari Lake in almost every public poll by a healthy margin. In most public polls of Michigan, Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin, leads Republican Rep. Mike Rogers.

Despite the favorable polling in these battlegrounds, Kondik said that Republicans are favored “thanks in large part to a favorable set of targets” adding that ”they seem to be in good shape to get at least 51 seats and could go higher than that.”

Essentially, Republicans need only to hold onto their seats and win in the one battleground Senate race where Democrats are trailing: Montana. Sen. Jon Tester, D-Montana, has trailed Republican challenger Tim Sheehy since around mid-August. Combined with the fact Senator Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., is retiring, this alone could deliver the Senate to Republicans. Notably, if Republicans win the White House and only flip the West Virginia seat, they would also end up in control of the Senate due the to vice president’s tie-breaking role as president of the Senate.

There are a few wildcard Senate races where Democrats might be able to pull out a win, like Texas and Florida. Recent ActiVote polling of Texas found Rep. Collin Allred, D-Texas, just five points behind Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and other surveys have found an even smaller lead for Cruz. In Florida, Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., leads by just 4.2 points and the race has steadily tightened since the beginning of August.

Phillips told Salon that the Senate is where his model diverges from many others. He agreed with Kondik on the GOP’s advantage in terms of the Senate map, but noted that “Democrats seem to have a real candidate recruitment advantage,” a factor noted by Sen, Gary Peters, D-Mich., who is the chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

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Democrats currently enjoy a two-point lead in FiveThirtyEight’s generic ballot polling of the House, leading Republicans 47% to 45%. Democrats, however, were disadvantaged in redistricting ahead of the 2024 cycle, with a Brennan Center analysis finding that the current maps have 16 fewer districts that President Joe Biden would’ve won in 2020 with the bulk of the losses coming in Texas and Florida. 

Democrats, in shedding some support in New York and California, might have a harder time retaking battleground House districts in both states in 2024.

Democrats do, however, have more target seats this year. Race for the WH identified around 23 “prime targets” and 21 “stretch targets" for Democrats, with prime targets being seats Democrats might easily flip and stretch targets representing potential pickups in a favorable election year. While seats in New York and California have received a lot of attention, these target seats are also scattered across the country including in states like Iowa, Colorado, Louisiana, Alabama, Washington and Oregon.

Republicans have 14 prime targets and 31 stretch targets and their map of targets is more scattered across the country, with some notable districts in Michigan, Maryland, Virginia, Maine and Pennsylvania.