Election Day is less than 30 days away and the presidential race remains a statistical dead heat, with Vice President Kamala Harris holding perhaps a slight lead over former President Donald Trump. In seven swing states — Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada — the race is as tight as ever.
Predictably, news outlets have begun their Electoral College mapping, offering early sketches of the two candidates’ different pathways to obtaining the 270 electoral votes required to clinch the presidency. The story of the last several election cycles is that presidential contests have, in a polarized nation, gotten a lot tighter.