Latest CNN ‘Road to 270’ map sees small but consequential move in Harris’ direction

By David Chalian, CNN

(CNN) — The 2024 presidential electoral battleground map has proved to be remarkably stable over the past two months after the race was reshaped with Vice President Kamala Harris’ elevation to the top of the Democratic ticket.

We are only making one tiny, but quite consequential, adjustment to our current “Road to 270” electoral map as the race heads into its final five weeks. It is possible that if we see significant movement in the polls or in candidate and campaign investment in any of the remaining battlegrounds, we could still adjust this outlook prior to Election Day.

SEE CNN’S ROAD TO 270 INTERACTIVE MAP

In this latest installment of our Electoral College outlook, we are moving the single electoral vote awarded to the winner of Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District from a toss-up to leaning in Harris’ direction.

The Cornhusker State is one of two, along with Maine, that splits some of its electoral votes, and the vice president holds a significant lead in the battle for an electoral vote from an Omaha-area seat. A CNN poll conducted by SSRS and released last Friday showed Harris with 53% support among likely voters in the 2nd District compared with former President Donald Trump’s 42%. A New York Times/Siena College poll released over the weekend had very similar findings. In 2020, Joe Biden carried the district by more than 6 points on his way to winning the presidency. Harris and her allies have dramatically outspent Trump and his backers in Nebraska and are poised to extend that advantage in the closing five weeks of the campaign.

That one move on the map also helps demonstrate the clearest and most direct paths to the 270 electoral votes needed to win for both Harris and Trump. In polling averages of the seven toss-up battleground states, Harris performs slightly better against Trump across the Rust Belt states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin than she does in the Sun Belt states of Georgia, North Carolina, and Arizona. If Harris were to repeat Biden’s 2020 victories in just the three “blue wall” states and secure the electoral vote in the Omaha-area district we currently have leaning in her direction, she would have exactly 270 electoral votes and become the president-elect.

If Trump repeats his victories in all the states he won in 2020, he would need to flip just two states – Georgia and Pennsylvania – to get to 270 electoral votes and secure a second White House term. However, that relies on North Carolina staying in his column, and CNN’s most recent polling there showed a tied race with Harris and Trump at 48% each.

As the contest enters its final 35 days, tracking the resources each side is pouring into advertising to reach the shrinking share of undecided voters and to ensure existing supporters turn out to vote can be quite instructive about where the campaigns are placing their bets.  The Harris campaign and its Democratic allies spent nearly double the amount of ad money compared with the Trump campaign and its Republican allies in the month of September. According to AdImpact, the Democrats spent roughly $293 million on ads in the seven battleground states last month compared with the Republicans’ $157 million investment across the same states. Three of the largest electoral prizes on the map – Pennsylvania, Georgia and Michigan – were home to more than 60% of the overall spending for the month.

Trump now has 24 states (and one congressional district in Maine) either solidly in his corner or leaning in his direction, totaling 219 electoral votes, 51 votes short of the 270 required to win.

For her part, Harris has 19 states plus the District of Columbia (and the one congressional district in Nebraska) either solidly in her favor or leaning in her direction, which brings her total electoral vote count to 226, 44 votes short of the 270 required to win.

We currently rate seven states totaling 93 electoral votes as true toss-ups.

We should be clear about what this electoral outlook is and, more importantly, what it is not. It is a current snapshot of the Electoral College landscape in what will likely prove to be another very close and extraordinarily consequential presidential election. It is not a prediction of how things will turn out in November.

We base this current outlook on public and private polling, and conversations with campaign advisers, Republican and Democratic political operatives, members of Congress, and political professionals involved with outside groups poised to be active in the race.

Solid Republican: (Total: 188 electoral votes)

Alabama (9), Alaska (3), Arkansas (6), Idaho (4), Indiana (11), Iowa (6), Kansas (6), Kentucky (8), Louisiana (8), Mississippi (6), Missouri (10), Montana (4), Nebraska (4), North Dakota (3), Ohio (17), Oklahoma (7), South Carolina (9), South Dakota (3), Tennessee (11), Texas (40), Utah (6), West Virginia (4), Wyoming (3)

Leans Republican: (Total: 31 electoral votes)

Florida (30), Maine 2nd Congressional District (1)

Toss-ups: (Total: 93 electoral votes)

Arizona (11), Georgia (16), Michigan (15), Nevada (6), North Carolina (16), Pennsylvania (19), Wisconsin (10)

Leans Democratic: (Total: 51 electoral votes)

Colorado (10), Minnesota (10), Nebraska 2nd Congressional District (1), New Hampshire (4), New Mexico (5), Oregon (8), Virginia (13)

Solid Democratic: (Total: 175 electoral votes)

California (54), Connecticut (7), Delaware (3), DC (3), Hawaii (4), Illinois (19), Maine (3), Maryland (10), Massachusetts (11), New Jersey (14), New York (28), Rhode Island (4), Vermont (3), Washington (12)

CNN’s David Wright contributed to this report.

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