After a summer of political upheaval, the polls are finally showing what analysts expected all along: a dead heat.

According to the New York Times polling averages, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are locked in an extremely tight contest heading into their first debate Tuesday. Neither candidate has a clear lead in the battleground states likeliest to decide the Electoral College

In today’s polarized era, it’s hard to be surprised by polls showing a close race. But the polls today aren’t just close. In the era of modern polling, there’s never been an election when the final polls showed the race as close as it is today — not in 2000, 2004 or 2012, let alone 2016 or 2020.

From now until Election Day, we’ll be kicking off our Monday mornings with a wider look at the state of the race. Here’s where things stand with eight weeks to go.

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The State of the Race

The national polls show Harris with a modest 2-point lead over Trump, 49% to 47%.

But as Al Gore and Hillary Clinton can attest, the presidency is not decided by the national popular vote. It’s decided by the Electoral College, and the race in the key battleground states is much closer.

The polls show Harris and Trump within 2 points of each other in the seven key states: Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona and Nevada. To win, Trump or Harris will need to win at least three of the seven states, and neither candidate can claim a meaningful advantage in so many states.

If you squint, Harris might have an ever-so-slight edge. She leads by a few points in Michigan and Wisconsin, two states that would put her on the cusp of winning the presidency. From there, she could go over the top by winning Pennsylvania, or by winning a combination of other battleground states, where the race is essentially even.

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What if the Polls Are Wrong?

Polling may be the best way to measure the attitudes of a diverse country, but it’s still deeply imperfect. The polls have been off-target before, and they will be off-target again — perhaps even in eight weeks.

And with the polls showing such a close race in so many key states, it would take only a small, typical, ordinary polling error to put one candidate well over the top.

To illustrate, imagine what would happen if this year’s polls were off in exactly the same ways they were off in 2020 or 2022.

Harris or Trump could claim a fairly decisive victory if the polls happen to be off in exactly the same ways they were off two or four years ago.

There’s not necessarily any reason to expect this, to be clear. It’s merely to illustrate the amount of uncertainty. While the polls may be close, it would be pretty easy for either candidate to claim a decisive victory with well over 300 electoral votes.

Here are some simple ways to see how the current polling — and possible polling misses — could translate to the Electoral College:

What’s Changed?

It goes without saying that the polls have shifted a lot since mid-July, when President Joe Biden was well behind Trump. Since then, Harris has gained about 6 or 7 points in most battleground states and nationwide, according to our poll average.

But despite a well-received Democratic National Convention, there hasn’t necessarily been any additional movement in Harris’ favor over the past few weeks. If anything, there are a few hints that she has slipped a bit since the convention, including the most recent Times/Siena College survey released Sunday, which found Trump slightly ahead.

If Harris’ numbers have faded a bit, the explanation could be straightforward. After multiple waves of positive media coverage following Biden’s departure from the race, she might have been riding a political sugar high — one that was bound to come a bit back to earth at some point.

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What’s Next?

Of course, there’s still time for the race to change, starting with the debate Tuesday night.

Historically, the candidate generally considered the winner of the first presidential debate can surge in the polls in the days thereafter. In the last two cycles, Biden and Clinton each built a significant national lead after being seen as the consensus winner against Trump, though in those particular cases their edge faded along with coverage of the debates. Earlier this year, it was Trump who built a big lead against Biden, which led to his exit from the race.

When will we know whether the debate had an effect? As soon as the debate is over, some pollsters will try to conduct so-called flash polls to figure out who “won.” These polls aren’t necessarily reflective of the overall electorate — not everyone will watch the debate — but these polls will nonetheless shape media coverage in the days that follow. Soon thereafter, polls of online panelists will measure the wider electorate, but polls like these tend to show less movement than others, as they often include many highly engaged voters who enjoy taking surveys.

The first round of higher-quality polls should begin to report their findings by the weekend. We’ll tell you what they show next week.

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Nate Cohn
c. 2024 The New York Times Company