CNN’s latest ‘Road to 270’ map shows a small but consistent move toward Harris

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

We’re making just one small, but very consequential adjustment to our current “Road to 270” election map as the race enters its final five weeks. It’s possible that if we see significant movement in the polls or in investment in candidates and campaigns in any of the remaining battlegrounds, we could revise this outlook before Election Day.

SEE CNN’S ROAD TO 270 INTERACTIVE MAP

In this final installment of our take on the Electoral College, we move the single electoral vote awarded to the winner of Nebraska’s second congressional district from a toss-up to a tilt toward Harris’s side.

Mysterious blue dots appear on lawns in a crucial state of the battlefield. This is what they mean

The Cornhusker State, along with Maine, is one of two states that split a portion of its electoral votes, and the vice president has 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 found Harris had 53% support among likely voters in the 2nd District, compared to former President Donald Trump’s 42%. A New York Times/Siena College poll released this weekend produced very similar findings. In 2020, Joe Biden led the district by more than six points on his way to winning the presidency. Harris and her allies have dramatically outspent Trump and his base in Nebraska and are poised to extend that advantage in the final five weeks of the campaign.

That one step on the map also helps demonstrate the clearest and most direct paths to the 270 electoral votes needed to win both Harris and Trump. In the polling averages of the seven battleground states, Harris performs 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 district currently leaning in her direction, she would have exactly 270 electoral votes and become the president-elect.

If Trump repeats his victories in all the states he won in 2020, he would need to flip just two states — Georgia and Pennsylvania — to gain 270 electoral votes and secure a second term in the White House. However, that’s contingent on North Carolina remaining in his column, and CNN’s most recent poll there showed a tie with Harris and Trump at 48% each.

As the contest enters its final 35 days, tracking the resources each party is putting into advertising to reach the shrinking share of undecided voters and ensure existing supporters turn out to vote could be quite instructive about where the campaigns are placing their bets places. The Harris campaign and its Democratic allies spent nearly double the ad dollars in September compared to the Trump campaign and its Republican allies. According to AdImpact, Democrats spent roughly $293 million on ads in the seven battleground states last month, compared to the $157 million Republicans invested in the same states. Three of the biggest election prizes on the map – Pennsylvania, Georgia and Michigan – accounted for more than 60% of total spending for the month.

Trump now has 24 states (and one congressional district in Maine) firmly in his corner or leaning toward him, with a total of 219 electoral votes, 51 votes short of the 270 needed to win.

For her part, Harris has 19 states plus the District of Columbia (and the only congressional district in Nebraska) that are either solidly in her favor or leaning toward her, bringing her total electoral votes to 226, 44 votes short of the required 270. win.

We currently rate seven states with a total of 93 electoral votes as true toss-ups.

We need to be clear about what these electoral prospects are and, more importantly, what they are not. It is a timely snapshot of the Electoral College landscape in what will likely prove to be another very close and extremely consequential presidential election. It’s not a prediction of what things will look like in November.

We base this current view on public and private polling and conversations with campaign consultants, Republican and Democratic political operatives, members of Congress, and political professionals involved with outside groups poised 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.