I think Trump's gains with young men are the main area patching him back up and are what's mostly being missed when people ask how it's this close.

While it's true that Younger Generations are getting more Liberal, that trend is only extremely strong among women. It's a weak trend among men(and it really only works if you compare them directly to like, Boomers). Gen X males have been gradually shifting right compared to the Obama years, and Gen Z is just broadly more right wing than Millennials. Gender may legitimately be the biggest divider right now, only rivaled by Urban Rural.

Rural Male Gen Z isn't as left as many people would think.

These gains(plus slow steady gains among Latino blocs, mostly Cubans and old blood Tejano types) are making up for the losses in women voters he suffered in 2022 and 2016 and the loss in black voters thanks to Harris.

That and the right wing is slowly clawing back control of portions of the media. In the Aftermath of Gamergate most of the mainstream internet platforms swung hard to the left and several became fully controlled like Twitter and Tumblr. Thanks in part to several tech bro defections and bot operations places like Facebook slipped in 2020 and now Twitter and CNN follow. That was keeping most of the bitter young men who weren't involved in GG or Republicans prior in line with the democrats. With that control erroding they're starting to slip. We've seen this playout in South Korea before, who's gender political divide is among the nastiest worldwide among democracies.

Also, I personally feel the Electoral College is archaic and was built upon the principal of inequality. It is also the only reason George W. Bush and Donald J. Trump even got elected in the first place; neither had the popular vote.

I could write an entire essay on how the US and the world would be better off without the Electoral College, but I would just be preaching to the choir and probably nobody would bother reading it (lol.)

Nebraska changing it's laws to WTA would alter a couple of scenarios, turning narrow losses into ties or ties into narrow wins. Most of these scenarios aren't very likely(two involve Maine state flipping and one involves Trump doing really well in the Rust Belt and flopping in the South which would be absurd), but the 'Trump sweeps the South and South-West and Harris dominates the Rust Belt" scenario is currently THE most likely on polls, more likely than a safe Trump win by yoinking PA or WI or a safe Harris win yoinking Nevada or Georgia. And that's a tie if Nebraska changes the laws, which puts it to the House...except each State gets one vote and the reps just have to work together to pick that vote. So even in a Blue House they'd be likely voting Red.

What would you put the odds of-

1. Nebraska changing the laws before the election.
2. Maine being unable to gather support and pass laws to change their own system in response in time(Nebraska's been trying since March, if Nebraska passed it in September or October would Maine rally in time? It may only be one point +R one point -D, but that single point matters if every state voted exactly as it's polled right now on the most centrist polling sites.

I tend to use a couple of different Polling conglomerate sites to get my info. All reputable, all easy to read, but all slightly different (538 trends slightly left, RealClear trends slightly right, and The Hill is relatively centrist). I feel more comfortable in this because none of the 3 are disagreeing on basic trends or rough ranges. They all showed the same pattern since the start of the month of Kamala Harris slowly gaining ground, just the baseline and the exact pace of the change is different(538 had her ahead by Late July, THQ had her ahead by August 3rd, and RCP had her ahead by August 5th). Sure, 538 has a stronger democrat baseline, RCP a stronger Republican baseline, they disagree on which polls to include sometimes, but the general trend line is in 100% agreement. The democrats have been gaining strength since the start of the month.

You can also use this on the State by State level, though it's less accurate as there's less info, especially for less tight Swingstates like NC or MI. In general Georgia is tightening, but none of the 3 sites have it ever going into the blue. 538 is dead even last two days, 0.1 Trump today, RCP is 0.8 for Trump, and The Hill is....2 points up, but they haven't updated Georgia in a day or two so probably actually under 1. All 3 agree on a blue trend line, and in this case all 3 agree Trump is still the favorite, but how tight it is varies. That's a normal polling difference.

Pennsylvania, same thing. All agree on a blue trend, 538 says Harris took the lead a bit ago, The Hill shows her just barely having done it, RCP still shows Trump half a point up. Same trend, no massive outlier variance, just different final numbers due to differences in weighing and which polls get included.

Reverse trend in other states, Nevada and Arizona are red on THQ and RCP, but just barely blue on 538. Definitely redder than Pennsylvania and also Nevada especially is horrifically underpolled, all 3 are using scraps. There's universal agreement on North Carolina and Georgia(barely) being red and Michigan and Wisconsin being blue. None of the 3 sites show those going the other way albeit the ratio varries. Pennsylvania leans blue, Arizona leans red, Nevada leans on no fucking data what did the polling guys pull a Fear and Loathing and run off? It's supposed to be Loathing on the Campaign Trail not in Vegas, god we need to double check the books we give these guys before we send them into Bat country.

With the US 2024 Presidential Election between sitting President Joseph R Biden and former President Donald J Trump coming up on November 5th, I figured I would feature this interactive map, which uses 538’s data. It provides a visual way to illustrate how either candidate can win the Electoral College.