Kamala Harris' easiest path to 270 appears to have become more difficult

Vice President Kamala Harris faces an increasingly tough battle in the Midwest as she seeks the 270 electoral votes needed to win the 2024 presidential election.

What was once considered the easiest path for Harris – winning the battleground “blue wall” states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, as well as Nebraska's 2nd Congressional District – has become more difficult, with recent polls showing her falling behind in Michigan and Wisconsin .

Harris' campaign has devoted energy to ensuring that the trio of Midwestern battlegrounds, which flipped from Donald Trump in 2016 to Joe Biden in 2020, stay blue in November.

Rebuilding that wall was seen as the clearest path for Harris to the presidency, especially since polls early in the race suggested she had narrow but consistent leads in all three cases. Since 1988, when Wisconsin went for Michael Dukakis while Michigan and Pennsylvania voted for George HW Bush, the states have voted the same in every election.

But new data shows that Trump's campaign is gaining momentum in these states, turning what was already expected to be a close race into an even tougher fight.

According to a Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday, Trump leads Harris by three points in Michigan (50 percent to 47 percent) and two points in Wisconsin (48 percent to 46 percent). While Harris still has a three-point lead in Pennsylvania (49 percent to 46 percent), her campaign's efforts in the industrial Midwest appear to be fading.

The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this week that in Wisconsin, recent internal polling by Democrat Tammy Baldwin's Senate campaign showed Harris three points behind Trump, while Baldwin herself has a narrow two-point lead in her own race.

A person familiar with the survey said WSJ that the Republican Party's strength among men without college degrees is largely responsible for the change.

Charles Franklin, a professor of law and public policy at Marquette University and director of the Marquette Law School survey, said Newsweek that Wisconsin has a history of razor-thin presidential margins.

“The history of presidential elections in Wisconsin since 2000 has been one of very close races, with four of the six elections being decided by less than one percentage point,” Franklin said.

Franklin said Harris is leading Trump by a narrow margin, but the race could easily tip one way or the other.

“Polling averages currently put Harris’ lead in the state at under one point. We were four points ahead in our September polls, but rural Wisconsin has become increasingly Republican since 2012,” Franklin said. “Much of the outcome depends on the GOP’s success in rural Wisconsin and Democratic dominance in Dane and Milwaukee counties.”

“The other region of interest is Green Bay and Fox Valley counties (Brown, Outagamie and Winnebago), where Republicans are heavily represented. A Republican surge there could swing the race in Trump's favor, while an outperformance by Democrats would be a big advantage for Harris.”

Trump took advantage of this opportunity, holding four rallies in Wisconsin in nine days in late September and early October.

At a rally in Juneau, a rural town north of Madison, Trump confidently declared: “If we win Wisconsin, we win the presidency.”

Trump won the state by fewer than 23,000 votes in 2016 and lost it by just under 21,000 votes in 2020. Polls suggest the race is likely to be just as close in 2024.

Harris' performance in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania has lagged Biden's in 2020, particularly when it comes to organized labor.

While Harris has received the support of influential unions such as the United Auto Workers and the Service Employees International Union, others, such as the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the International Association of Fire Fighters, have withheld their support.

Trump has repeatedly targeted workers in the Midwest with his rhetoric about high costs, lost production and the threat of China's growing influence.

At a recent event in Flint, Michigan, Harris pushed back against Trump's claims that she wants to “get rid of all gasoline-powered cars,” assuring the crowd, “I'll never tell you what kind of car you have to drive.”

Pollster Nate Silver expressed concern about Harris' weakening position in the Midwest but cautioned against overreacting to individual polls, writing on his blog Wednesday: “The odds of a Trump victory in the Electoral College are about even.”

Silver's analysis points to a long-standing tendency among Democrats to panic as Election Day approaches, a phenomenon compounded by “the scar tissue left over from 2016,” when Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in all three elections .

Newsweek has reached out to the Trump and Harris campaigns for comment via email.