Kamala Harris’s Multiple Paths to Victory
Joe Biden had all but written off the Sun Belt battleground states. They’re back on the table again, giving Harris some strategic flexibility.
One of the reasons Joe Biden was considered a potentially weak general-election candidate was that he had a narrow path to the 270 electoral votes necessary for victory. Looking at the six battleground states he won in 2020 — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin — he was trailing substantially in the polls in all of them other than (occasionally) Michigan and Wisconsin throughout much of 2024. From both the point of view of state polling and the kind of following he had nationally, it was increasingly clear that Biden’s strategy for winning depended on sweeping the so-called “Blue Wall” states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, and avoid stumbling in any of the non-battleground blue states (e.g., New Hampshire, Virginia, and Minnesota, all states with shaky Biden poll performances this year) or in the Second Congressional District of Nebraska, which, like the First District of Maine, casts its own individual electoral vote. Wins in these states plus the one Nebraska district added up to the bare minimum of 270 EVs.
This scenario left Biden no margin for error at all, and persistently troublesome polling in Pennsylvania (where Donald Trump led by 4.4 percent in the FiveThirtyEight averages prior to Biden’s withdrawal from the race) made the “Blue Wall” strategy look fraught.
Now that Kamala Harris is the Democratic nominee, the path to 270 EVs looks smoother and wider. She leads in the FiveThirtyEight polling averages in all three “Blue Wall” states: by two points (45.1 to 43.1 percent) in Michigan; by one point (45.5 to 44.5 percent) in Pennsylvania; and by 1.5 percent (46.1 to 44.6 percent) in Wisconsin. That’s good. But what’s even better is her improvement over Biden’s showing in the Sun Belt battleground states his campaign was all but writing off. When he dropped out, Biden was trailing Trump in the FiveThirtyEight averages in Georgia by 5.9 percent. Harris trails by 0.7 percent (45.8 to 45.2 percent). Biden trailed in Arizona by 5.5 percent; Harris trails by 1.8 percent (45.8 to 44.0 percent). And Biden trailed in Nevada by 5.8 percent. While FiveThirtyEight hasn’t posted averages for Harris versus Trump in Nevada, the Bloomberg–Morning Consult tracking poll shows her actually leading in the state by two points (47 to 45 percent). Harris’s Rust Belt improvements don’t seem puzzling, moreover, given her generally improved performance among the under-30, Black, and Latino voters who are particularly important in these states.
What does this mean strategically? For one thing, Team Trump is going to have to play defense in Sun Belt states that looked like a lock earlier in the year. But more importantly, Harris now has potentially multiple paths to 270 electoral votes. Let’s say she loses Pennsylvania, arguably Democrats’ weakest link in the “Blue Wall.” That’s 19 EVs. But she could more than make up for such a loss by carrying the suddenly very competitive states of Georgia (16 EVs) and Nevada (six EVs), giving her a total of 273 EVs and the White House. So Harris does not necessarily have to go for broke in Pennsylvania as a “must-win” state if for some reason Trump pulls ahead there as he did earlier against Biden.
In more than one way, this is a new presidential race.