State of the 2024 Race as of Sept. 23
Harris leads Trump 276 to 262 in the Electoral College, and by 3 points in the national popular vote
Thank you for reading my analysis of current polling in the 2024 Presidential race. This will be updated every Monday evening until the election. If you have friends who you think would be interested in receiving these updates, please share this with them! There is no cost to subscribe to these updates.
With 43 days to go until the 2024 election, the race to the required 270 Electoral College votes remains both very tight and very steady. For more than a month, my projection of how many Electoral College votes each candidate would receive if the election were held that day hasn’t shifted at all, though the margins in various states have. In the last week, Harris made gains in Pennsylvania, in particular — which is helpful to her, because it remains the most likely tipping point state
Road to 270 Electoral Votes
In the seven swing states and two swing districts, Kamala Harris holds leads in slightly more than enough states to win if the election were held today based on my polling averages. The methodology used to calculate these averages is described towards the end of this post.
Harris appears to lead by around 5 points in Nebraska’s second Congressional district (1 electoral vote).
Harris appears to lead by around 3 points in Michigan (15 electoral votes).
Harris appears to lead by around 2 points in Pennsylvania (19 electoral votes) and Wisconsin (10 electoral votes).
Harris appears to lead by around 1 point in Nevada (6 electoral votes).
Trump appears to lead by around 1 point in Arizona (11 electoral votes), Maine’s second Congressional district (1 electoral vote), and North Carolina (16 electoral votes).
Trump appears to lead by around 2 points in Georgia (16 electoral votes).
In the national popular vote, Harris appears to lead by around 3 points.
The present tipping point state is Pennsylvania, and the current differential between the tipping point margin and the national popular vote is 1.5 points.
Polling in the Past Week
National polling numbers have continued to show movement towards Harris in the aftermath of the debate, with her notching an 8 point lead in a Big Village poll and 6 point leads in Outward Intelligence and Morning Consult polls.
High quality pollsters showed a tighter race: Florida Atlantic University, Angus Reid Global and two separate polls by YouGov came in with a 4 point national lead for Harris, Beacon and Shaw showed a 2 point national lead for Harris in a poll commissioned by Fox News, as did an RMG Research survey, and a New York Times / Siena poll showed the race tied.
JL Partners gave Harris a 1 point lead, and Harris X came in at Harris plus 2 in a poll done in partnership with George Washington University.
The chart below shows each week of national polling since Harris entered the race, weighted by pollster quality. Harris held a lead of 3.6 points in a weighted average of all national polls completed in the week of September 15, compared to 3 points the week before, and 1.2 points during the week of September 1.
The main driver in that tight result in early September was not a drop in Harris’s support, but higher numbers for Trump than in any other week of polling. This was common amongst all eight polls released that week, but only that week. I can’t really explain it.
In Michigan, four new polls were completed last week, and Harris led by 4.1 points in the weighted average.
In Wisconsin, five new polls were completed last week, and Harris led by 2.1 points in the weighted average.
In Nevada, two new polls were completed last week, and Harris led by 1.8 points in the weighted average.
In Pennsylvania, nine new polls were completed last week, and Harris led by 1.7 points in the weighted average.
In North Carolina, five new polls were completed last week, and Trump led by 1.3 points in the weighted average.
In Arizona, three new polls were completed last week, and Trump led by 1.8 points in the weighted average.
In Georgia, five new polls were completed last week, and Trump led by 2.2 points in the weighted average.
Comparison to Other Aggregators
Below is a table that compares my current projected margin in each of the seven swing states with that of other polling aggregators. Some of these websites also publish forecasts of the eventual November 5 results, but what I am listing here are their estimated margins of where the polls stand in each state today.
The only state with any differentiation is North Carolina, which Split Ticket shows as a slight Harris lead. North Carolina is the closest state in every aggregator’s estimate, except for The Economist, which shows a slightly closer race in Arizona.
Methodology
The polling numbers discussed above are weighted, adjusted, and blended averages based on pretty much every poll released since Kamala Harris became the presumptive Democratic nominee in late July.
To produce these averages I take the following steps:
I collect polls from Twitter, aggregators and news websites. In cases when pollsters release more than one survey at the same time, I preference the head to head Harris versus Trump polls over the broader field polls (because I believe that polling greatly overstates third party vote shares) and likely voter surveys over registered voter surveys. I do not include “all adult” polls.
I weight the polls by pollster quality and time since completion. For pollster quality, I used the grades from FiveThirtyEight and Silver Bulletin translated into a 0.0 to 1.0 value. Pollsters with no such ranking are still included, but with a fairly low weight. Likely voter surveys are given 10% more weight than a registered voter survey from the same pollster would be. The weight given to a poll falls every seven days after its completion, to preference newer data over older data, and is zeroed out six weeks after the poll came out of the field. I do not adjust the weight given to a survey based on sample size.
I then adjust those weighted averages to split the undecideds and set the projected third party share of the vote at around 2 percent. This completes the process for creating my estimated national popular vote, but to create a final estimated vote in each state, there’s one more step.
I then take the margin in my estimated national popular vote, and combine it with a weighted average of the differential between each swing state/district’s 2016 and 2020 results and the national 2016 and 2020 results. This gives me an estimate of what the margin in each swing state/district would be based just on historical patterns and my estimated national popular vote margin. I then combine these regressions with the weighted, adjusted average for each state/district at a 20% to 80% weight, giving me a blended number and a final estimated vote in each swing state/district. In cases where there a very few, or only very old, polls in a specific state or district, I increase the weight of regression based on national polling.
While others might quibble with one part or another of this methodology, I’m comfortable with it. It’s my best attempt to take the data available and use it to create a fair estimate of the present state of the presidential campaign without my partisan preferences influencing my analysis.
If you have a significant problem with any of the steps above, please just accept that I’m not going to change my process at this point. If you want to do your own analysis, you almost certainly have Microsoft Excel or Apple Numbers (which is what I use) on your computer. Take a crack at it — math is fun!
Kamala Harris for President
While the point of these averages is to try to create an estimate of where the presidential race now stands in a data-based and impartial manner, I am not impartial. I don’t think any of us should be.
Kamala Harris is the right choice for President of the United States. She has been an excellent Vice President. She has cast tie breaking votes on landmark legislation such as the Inflation Reduction Act. She is running on a platform built around addressing real challenges facing the American people. She has plans to address prices and the cost of living. She has plans to address our nation’s critical housing shortage. She has plans to make it easier for new parents to afford the raise a family, for seniors to afford the prescription drugs we need, for young people to afford college. She supports fully restoring a woman’s right to choose across our nation, and will stand up against the radical right-wing agenda embodied by Project 2025, which is a direct threat to the freedoms and civil liberties Americans hold dear. She will stand up for our allies and democracy at home and abroad. She will not abandon Ukraine or NATO. She will work to build an economy of opportunity, one where we tackle climate change by embracing new technologies and creating energy abundance, one where it’s easier to start a business, one where everyone has a fair shot to achieve their dreams.
Donald Trump lost the 2020 election fair and square, and responded to that fact by whipping a mob into a frenzy and sitting back and doing nothing while they stormed the United States Capitol. You probably watched this attack on our nation on your television. I got to experience it firsthand as I hid in a secure room with my boss while the heart of American democracy was defiled. This was the climactic moment of a terrible presidency that divided our nation, that diminished our standing in the world, that packed our courts with theocrats who have used their power to undermine the rights of women, people of color, and LGBTQ people. Four years ago, 81 million Americans voted to fire Trump. Today, he’s surrounding himself with anti-vaccine conspiracy nuts, anti-gay activists who coddle dictators like Assad and Putin, and fanatics who proudly spread divisive and dangerous lies.
Kamala Harris has spent her life working for a better America as a prosecutor, a Senator, and Vice President. She’s an inspiring American story.
Donald Trump has spent his entire life nursing grievances and caring only about himself. He embodies everything our parents told us not to be when we grow up.
Vote for Kamala Harris on or before November 5, and if you can, please contribute to her campaign.
Local Politics Matter, Too!
And while I have your attention, I feel compelled to mention that I’m running for re-election on the Democratic ticket for Alexandria City Council this November. Over the three years that I have been a member of the City Council, I have worked to address our city’s affordable housing crisis, to do our part in the fight against climate change, to improve public safety by supporting our first responders, to support our young people by increasing funding for our schools and our senior citizens on fixed incomes by reducing their property taxes. I’ve also led the Council in standing up for Alexandria’s values by defending our abortion clinics in the wake of Dobbs and supporting our schools as they stood up to Governor Youngkin’s attacks on trans students.
I’m proud of my record in Alexandria, and of our city’s role in keeping Virginia blue. If you’d like to contribute to help me, and my fellow Democratic nominees, win in November and turn out the vote for Kamala Harris and Time Kaine, you can do so here.