Harris and Trump remain tied, but the momentum is his: NPR

Former President Donald Trump appears to be in charge again in this presidential election.

If you look closely at the polls, Trump is now ahead in two states and the other five most closely watched states are in the dark. According to an NPR analysis of polling averages at the time, Vice President Harris had a lead large enough to tilt her way in three of the seven states at the end of August.

Now, in average polls in the seven swing states, Trump has taken the lead in the race for the first time since Harris.

Polls have been trending toward Trump in recent weeks, and the spikes Harris enjoyed in the most competitive and critical states have largely evaporated. Everything is still within the margin of error and incredibly close – just 0.34 percentage points separate Trump and Harris. But the consequence of the change – and the fact that everything is going Trump's way – worries Democrats.

When President Biden dropped out of the race and Harris stepped in, Democratic enthusiasm increased and the tide of the race moved in their direction. But since then, Trump's team has been extremely negative and is trying to push Harris' numbers down.

The Harris campaign maintains that the race has been close all along, that they always expected a close race and that, with the exception of Harris' participation, there hasn't been much movement.

In 2016 and 2020, polls overstated Democrats' standing in presidential elections. Although Biden won, he had a larger lead in many swing state polls than the final results showed. Does this mean Trump will win this election? Perhaps. Or have the pollsters corrected errors, making the race more of a true coin toss race? That is also possible.

Surveys too unobtrusive Supporting Democrats in the 2022 midterm elections. Of course, Trump wasn't on the ballot then.

Given that these campaigns are all within the margins of error, mobilizing key constituencies is the most important thing for both sides at this time, as early voting has begun in some places and many more states will be added in the coming days.

Because all seven swing states are within the margin of error, they remain an error on NPR's “Analysis” map (Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada). This is not based solely on polls, but on historical trends and conversations with campaign and party strategists.

The “Survey Map” is based on the average of two survey aggregators – Thirty-five And DDHQ/The Hill. If a candidate has a lead of 1 point or more in each of them, a status is moved to Lean D or R. If not, they are toss ups.

Neither candidate is yet favored to win in enough states to win at least the 270 electoral votes needed to win, and there are still three weeks left until the end of the election.