Harris needs to be over 50 percent and probably needs to be close to 51 percent to have a better-than-even chance of getting to 270.¹
If you wanted to be optimistic about Harris, you could pick from a menu of silver linings:
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>50 percent is within her margin of error.
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The third-party vote share is likely to be quite low, so she should float up at least a point from where she is now.
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She could overperform her poll numbers in a more serious and systematic way.
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Maybe the late break hasn’t come yet and when it does, it will favor her.
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Maybe the real signal is in the early voter data and not the polling averages.
Some, or all, of these could turn out to be true. But as of right now, she’s not where she needs to be.