How Kamala Harris has *transformed* the electoral map

This is HUGE.

When Joe Biden was still the Democratic nominee, his path to 270 electoral votes was extremely narrow.

It looked like this:

Biden could get to 270 — just! — if he swept Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. And won the single electoral vote in Nebraska’s 2nd district too!

Like, possible? Yes. Ideal? Far from it.

In the month since Biden dropped from the race, the map has totally changed — and it’s all in Democrats’ favor.

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Where Donald Trump once had far more plausible paths to 270, now Vice President Kamala Harris is the one with more flexibility on the map — and series of states that could add up to her win number.

CNN’s crack political team made a bunch of changes to their map over the weekend to reflect that changed reality.

Wrote David Chalian and Terrence Burlij:

Our previous electoral outlook had former President Donald Trump with a clear advantage in the quest for 270 electoral votes.  That advantage has evaporated with Harris’ entrance into the race and her rapid success at unifying the Democratic Party and restoring political strength with some key constituencies (voters of color, young voters, female voters) which have been part of recent winning coalitions for Democratic candidates. Despite the momentum shift, it is important to note that this race has snapped back to a margin-of-error contest with no current clear leader. Both Trump and Harris have multiple viable paths to 270 electoral votes.

In this new electoral outlook, we have moved four states from leaning Republican to toss-up battleground status. Michigan, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina have a combined total of 53 electoral votes that we have moved from leaning in Trump’s direction to toss-up.

Those changes create a map that looks like this:

Add it up and you get:

225 electoral votes solidly or leaning Harris

219 electoral votes solidly or leaning Trump

94 electoral votes in the “toss up” category

Which is a substantial shift from where we were even a month ago.

I’ve talked about Georgia as the new Pennsylvania — the state where both sides, if they win it, will almost certainly win the election.

But it’s also now worth adding North Carolina to that mix.

A new New York Times/Siena poll out over the weekend showed the race in the Tarheel State 49% Harris to 47% Trump. And that’s broadly consistent with other poll results in the state since Harris became the nominee.

Here’s the 538 polling average in the state:

That’s a dead heat.

And the way the candidates are acting suggests the race in North Carolina has closed since Harris emerged. Trump was in Asheville for a speech last week. (I went through that whole speech line by line.). Harris chose Raleigh on Friday to outline her economic policy proposals.

Trump and Harris are also spending heavily in the state on ads — and will continue to do so.

Consider what that means — in terms of the map. North Carolina has 16 electoral votes. As many as Georgia. More than Wisconsin. And Michigan. And Arizona. And Nevada. And every other swing state but Pennsylvania.

If Harris managed to win North Carolina, she is virtually certain of winning the presidency. Just look at this map, with North Carolina for Harris and the rest of the swing states remaining as toss ups:

Harris would only be 28(!) electoral votes from victory at that point. Which means if she won Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, the race would be over. Or if she won Wisconsin, Michigan and Nevada. Or if she won Georgia and Michigan.

You get the idea. A win in North Carolina would absolutely crack the map open for Harris. In fact, I would go as far as to say that without North Carolina, it’s virtually impossible now for Trump to win.

Of course, it’s worth considering the electoral history of North Carolina here. In the last 12 presidential elections — dating back to 1976 — the state has voted for the Democratic nominee only twice: Barack Obama in 2008 and Jimmy Carter in 1976.

In 2020, the was was very close, however. Trump got 2,362,631 votes to Joe Biden’s 2,189,316 votes — a margin of just more than 173,000 votes.

Four years earlier, Trump again was only able to get 50% of the vote but Hillary Clinton took just 46%. (Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson got 3%.)

In short: There’s a very clear path for a Democrat to get between 46% and 49% of the vote in North Carolina. Getting to 50% is a whole hell of a lot harder.

But, Harris is now in the game in North Carolina in a way Biden simply wasn’t. And that plus her strength in the Southwest makes the electoral map a lot more manageable for Harris than it ever was for Biden in this election. Which is huge.