Vice President Harris and former President Trump are heading into October locked in a tight race with no clear favorite, leaving both teams looking for how to break through.
Polls show both candidates are largely stalled at a near tie in the critical battleground states that will help determine who will next occupy the White House. So far, neither side has managed to move the needle much with voters while bracing for an October surprise that could further shake up an already unprecedented presidential race.
While she has closed a growing gap compared to when President Biden was still in the race, Harris has just over a 4 percentage point lead on Trump nationally in the Decision Desk HQ/The Hill aggregation of polls.
Battleground state polls paint the picture of an even closer race.
The aggregation of polls shows Trump has a 0.8 percentage point lead in Arizona and a 0.2 percentage point lead in Georgia. Harris has a 0.6 percentage point lead in Michigan, a 1.7 percentage point lead in Wisconsin, and a 2.2 percentage point lead in Nevada. In North Carolina, Trump is up 0.5 percentage points and, in Pennsylvania, Harris is up 0.6 percentage points.
Both candidates have spent a considerable amount of time in each of those states but their campaign efforts may be hampered in coming weeks after Hurricane Helene devastated parts of North Carolina and Georgia as well as Florida.
“Throughout the campaign, but especially in the final weeks, what candidates and their campaigns say matters and so does how they deliver that message,” said Adam Abrams, a communications official on former President Obama’s 2008 campaign.
“The campaign apparatus is built for the home stretch to reach as many voters on as many channels as possible,” added Abrams, a partner at Seven Letter. “In this case, we have a tale of two campaign messages, one with a message self-described as ‘dark,’ proposing violence, and another focused on the future and proposing ideas for how middle class Americans can get ahead.”
Trump is hitting four battleground states this week to start off the month. He was in Georgia on Monday and then will go to Wisconsin for two rallies on Tuesday, then back in North Carolina on Friday for a town hall. On Saturday, he will return to Butler, Pa. where in July he was the target of the first assassination attempt on his life this year.
Harris, for her part, is also keeping up with her own travel through key states.
She is expected to embark on a bus tour through Pennsylvania starting on Wednesday with her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D). But she cut short her travels through the Sun Belt over the weekend to return to Washington, D.C. for briefings on the hurricane.
Fundraising efforts are also sure to take the spotlight. The vice president raised $55 million during two fundraisers in California just over the weekend. Harris had $404 million cash in hand at the end of August, overtaking Trump who had $295 million in his campaign war chest.
But October could also see a shift in campaign rhetoric, with the GOP still trying to encourage Trump to stick to more policy issues and less personality and culture wars.
“It will shift the balance from a test of personality, which is what she wants, to a test of what’s providing the straightforward answer to the question that always is critical in an election, are you better off today than you were before four years ago?” said GOP lobbyist Marc Lampkin, former deputy campaign manager for Bush for President.
“What you got to do is you got to get out of the personality issues and focus on the issues that are the things that are going to drive people to make a rational decision for what’s best interest for the country,” Lampkin added.
There also won’t be any shortage of back-and-forth between the candidates and their campaigns, both of which expressed confidence in the final month-long stretch before Election Day, with each expressing their distinct advantages.
The Trump campaign for its part is banking on a slew of media appearances by Trump and his running mate Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) though Trump’s media appearances are largely with friendly interviewers. Still, it has placed both men in front of a camera and off-script a lot more often than Harris and Walz so far.
“Nobody in the game of politics works harder than President Trump, especially in the fourth quarter. President Trump and Senator Vance will continue to outpace Harris and Walz in the media, and bring their winning message to make America wealthy, safe, and strong again to voters across the country,” Trump campaign national press secretary Karoline Leavitt told The Hill in a statement.
The Harris campaign, meanwhile, pointed to Trump’s rhetoric as a reason why they are optimistic going into October, arguing that the former president is too afraid to debate Harris again after she accepted the CNN invite for an October match up.
“We have just over a month left to Election Day. I think Donald Trump is saying some of this stuff because he’s scared, because he’s worried about her beating him,” spokesperson Ian Sams said on MSNBC on Monday. “It’s why he refuses to accept a second debate. He’s clearly lashing out and emotional and moody because he doesn’t really want to face her on the debate stage again.”
