CNN’s latest “Road to 270” map sees a small but significant move in Harris’ direction

CNN
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The 2024 presidential battleground map has proven remarkably stable over the past two months after the race was reshaped with the rise of Vice President Kamala Harris to the top of the Democratic ticket.

We’re making one tiny, but rather important, adjustment to our current “Road to 270” election map as the race heads into its final five weeks. It’s possible that if we see significant movement in the polls or in candidate and campaign investment in any of the remaining battlegrounds, we could still adjust this outlook before Election Day.

SEE INTERACTIVE MAP CNN Route to 270

In this latest installment of our Electoral College insight, we move the single electoral vote awarded to the winner of Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District from a toss up to a tilt in Harris’ direction.

Mysterious blue dots appear on the turf in the crucial state of the battlefield. Here’s what they mean

The Cornhusker State is one of two, along with Maine, that shares some of its electoral votes, and the vice president holds a significant lead in the battle for an electoral vote from an Omaha-area seat. A CNN poll conducted by SSRS and released last Friday showed Harris with 53 percent support among likely voters in the 2nd District, compared to former President Donald Trump’s 42 percent. A New York Times/Siena College poll released over the weekend had very similar results. In 2020, Joe Biden carried the district by more than 6 points on his way to winning the presidency. Harris and her allies have dramatically outspent Trump and his supporters in Nebraska and are poised to extend that lead in the final five weeks of the campaign.

That map movement also helps demonstrate the clearest and most direct paths to the 270 electoral votes needed to win for both Harris and Trump. In the polling averages of the seven battleground states, Harris is doing slightly better against Trump in the Rust Belt states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin than in the Sun Belt states of Georgia, North Carolina and Arizona. If Harris were to repeat Biden’s 2020 victories in just the three “blue wall” states and secure the electoral vote in the Omaha-area district that we currently have tilted in her direction, she would have exactly 270 electoral votes and become president chosen.

If Trump repeats his victories in all the states he won in 2020, he would only need to flip two states – Georgia and Pennsylvania – to reach 270 electoral votes and secure a second term in the White House . However, that’s based on North Carolina remaining in his column, and the latest CNN poll there showed an even race with Harris and Trump at 48 percent each.

As the contest enters its final 35 days, tracking the resources each side is putting into advertising to reach the ever-shrinking share of undecided voters and to ensure that existing supporters vote can be quite instructive about where the campaigns stand. place their bets. The Harris campaign and its Democratic allies spent nearly double the amount of advertising dollars compared to the Trump campaign and its Republican allies in September. According to AdImpact, Democrats spent about $293 million on ads in the seven battleground states last month, compared to Republicans’ $157 million investment in the same states. Three of the biggest electoral prizes on the map — Pennsylvania, Georgia and Michigan — were home to more than 60 percent of total spending for the month.

Trump now has 24 states (and one congressional district in Maine) either firmly in his corner or leaning in his direction, totaling 219 electoral votes, 51 short of the 270 needed to win.

For her part, Harris has 19 states plus the District of Columbia (and Nebraska’s only congressional district) either firmly in her favor or leaning her way, bringing her electoral vote total to 226, 44 more short of the required 270. to win

We currently rate seven states with a total of 93 electoral votes as true tosses.

We should be clear about what this electoral perspective is and, more importantly, what it is not. It’s a current snapshot of the Electoral College landscape in what will likely turn out to be another very close and extraordinarily significant presidential election. It’s not a prediction of how things will play out in November.

We base this current outlook on public and private polling and conversations with campaign advisers, Republican and Democratic political operatives, members of Congress and political professionals involved with outside groups ready to be active in the race.

Alabama (9), Alaska (3), Arkansas (6), Idaho (4), Indiana (11), Iowa (6), Kansas (6), Kentucky (8), Louisiana (8), Mississippi (6), Missouri (10), Montana (4), Nebraska (4), North Dakota (3), Ohio (17), Oklahoma (7), South Carolina (9), South Dakota (3), Tennessee (11) , Texas (40), Utah (6), West Virginia (4), Wyoming (3)

Florida (30), Maine 2nd Congressional District (1)

Arizona (11), Georgia (16), Michigan (15), Nevada (6), North Carolina (16), Pennsylvania (19), Wisconsin (10)

Colorado (10), Minnesota (10), Nebraska 2nd Congressional District (1), New Hampshire (4), New Mexico (5), Oregon (8), Virginia (13)

California (54), Connecticut (7), Delaware (3), DC (3), Hawaii (4), Illinois (19), Maine (3), Maryland (10), Massachusetts (11), New Jersey (14) , New York (28), Rhode Island (4), Vermont (3), Washington (12)

CNN’s David Wright contributed to this report.