This has become somewhat of trend with many pollsters, slowly but surely moving in the President's direction.
Granted, there are still some polls such as the Economist and Morning Consult who are stubbornly showing no movement what-so-ever. But these polls have been showing the same 3–5-point lead for Harris since before the first debate.
Earlier this week, Nate Silver suggested that there is little reason to suspect that the race will change much (if at all) the last month of the campaign. I suspect that might be a little bit of wishful thinking on his part. Certainly, things have been slow to move, but much of that goes back to that "bouncing beach ball" theory. Every time it seems like Trump gains momentum, there is some sort of Harris bounce. But with the hurricanes down south, the tepid federal response, and the boneheaded attempt by the Harris camp to politicize it, there appears to be a natural Trump bounce that both the Harris campaign and the media are attempting to mitigate. What happens if there is a Trump bounce (even by a point or two), will it be something that the Harris camp can recover from without coming up with something of substance to change it?
One has to believe that they were hoping for a Vice-Presidential debate bounce, which obviously did not happen. If anything, that shifted momentum towards Trump-Vance. Why is the Vice President so eager to debate again? Well, it would be another opportunity to hit that beach ball back up on the air. No guarantee that it would work. After all, the expectations would be sky high and a different format could cause her problems living up to it. But they must feel as if they need something between now and then to make waves. I believe they have lost momentum, and that we might see some more wild attempts at recapturing it such as the scripted tarmac interview with a friendly reporter who attempted to lob up a softball that Harris could hit DeSantis with (and by proxy the Trump campaign). Instead that attempt probably backfired with a majority of Americans, especially after Biden defended DeSantis rather than Harris in that dispute.
So the real question right now is whether or not the next 27 days will change enough to really bend the stubborn media outlook that this is Harris' race to lose. Right now, 538 has Harris with a 53% chance, the Hill has her at a 52% chance, and Nate Silver is still showing here with a 55% chance (boy did he really manage some serious adjustments in mid-stream). These are obviously pretty dang close numbers and just a couple of good polls for Trump in Pennsylvania or Wisconsin or Michigan could reverse that in a hurry. That being said all of your major new stories about the state of the election seem to lead with the idea that Harris is ahead and that most people expect her to win. I wonder what happens if or when these same prognosticators show Trump with the advantage?
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