Vice President Kamala Harris’ late entry into the presidential race against former President Trump reset the political playing field in important ways, giving Democrats a promising boost in polling and a huge infusion of cash and volunteers. But it didn’t change everything.

In a nation of more than 330 million people, the 2024 election — just like the 2016 and 2020 elections before it — will almost certainly be decided by a relatively small number of voters in a handful of battleground states, political experts said.

When Hillary Clinton lost to Trump in 2016, it was by fewer than 80,000 votes across Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania combined. When President Biden beat Trump in 2020, it was by fewer than 50,000 votes across Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia.

Now, Harris is in a high-speed race to start executing her own path to victory through the nation’s battlegrounds, which include Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin — three of the “blue wall” of states that lean Democratic — and Georgia, North Carolina and Arizona, in the nation’s Sun Belt. This week, she is expected to pick her running mate — possibly from one of those states — and begin holding major rallies in places such as Philadelphia, Detroit, Raleigh, N.C., and Savannah, Ga.

Amid the high-stakes number-crunching that campaigns always do to determine their best path to victory, the Harris campaign is citing polls showing her closing the gap with Trump in nearly every battleground, and seeming more bullish than Biden’s campaign ever did. On the question of whether Harris might focus on the blue wall or the Sun Belt, her campaign’s answer has been both.

In a call with reporters last week, the campaign’s battleground states director, Dan Kanninen, said the flood of support for Harris across the country included 360,000 new volunteers and $200 million in donations during the first week of her candidacy — two-thirds of which was from new donors.

On Friday, the Harris campaign said that it had $377 million in cash on hand — compared with $327 million for Trump — and that it would be spending hard and fast to ramp up the fight.

Kanninen said the campaign is rapidly expanding an already large network of Biden-Harris field offices and volunteers across the battleground states. He said that there were 600 staffers “on the ground in the blue wall,” and that 150 more would be added by mid-August. Aides also planned to double the size of the campaign’s teams in Arizona and North Carolina, and were opening new field offices in Georgia.

Volunteers were fanning out to knock on doors, and being trained on how best to spur pro-Harris conversations online.

“We’re making these investments across the entire map because the data is clear: We have multiple pathways to 270 electoral votes,” Kanninen said. “The vice president is strong in both the blue wall and in the Sun Belt, and we are running hard in both.”

The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment on its strategy for battleground states.

In the American electoral system, voters cast ballots to elect the president, but the candidate who receives the most votes nationally is not necessarily the winner. Clinton, for example, received about 2.9 million more votes than Trump, and still lost.

That’s because the candidate who wins the most individual votes in a state receives all of that state’s electoral votes, in what’s known as the electoral college. The number of electoral votes per state is determined by population, with the most populous states — such as California — receiving the most.

In order to win an election today, a presidential candidate must secure 270 electoral votes, and different presidents have gotten there through different pathways. Barack Obama famously pulled together a broad coalition of voters, flipping nine previously red states to blue in 2008.

Clinton was confident going into the 2016 election, riding polls that appeared strongly in her favor, only to have her campaign’s swing-state strategy — she never campaigned in Wisconsin — ridiculed by some political analysts after her stunning defeat. In 2020, Biden managed to undo some of the damage to the Democratic Party, taking back several key battleground states while flipping Arizona and Georgia — but by closer margins and via a narrower path to victory than Obama‘s in 2008 and 2012.

Political experts, pollsters and other veterans of presidential races said that given Harris’ resources, it makes sense for the campaign to cast a wide net and fight in as many swing states as possible. But they have different takes on how she might get to 270 — or fall short.

Robert Alexander, a professor of political science at Bowling Green State University in Ohio and author of “Representation and the Electoral College,” has long studied presidential paths to victory on the electoral map.

“Harris’ entry has changed the complexion of states up for grabs, I would say, from where Biden was — and it’s made it more amenable for Democrats. Certain states seemed to be slipping away [under Biden], and some of the early polling would say that they are now back in grasp for a Harris-led ticket,” Alexander said. “That’s a pretty significant shift in a pretty quick time period.”

He said that Pennsylvania — with 19 electoral votes, which Clinton lost and Biden won — is a “pretty key state in all of this right now,” and that there will no doubt be “money dumped” into campaigning there.

But he also expects Harris, buoyed by new energy and enthusiasm, to invest in driving up turnout in the South, in part to force Trump — who had been preparing to “run up the scoreboard” on Biden — back into a defensive posture.

Kyle Kondik, a political analyst at the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, said both Harris and Trump appear focused, correctly, on the seven states that were decided by 3 percentage points or less in the last election: Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin in the blue wall; Georgia, North Carolina and Arizona in the Sun Belt; and Nevada.

In 2020, Biden won six out of the seven, while Trump took North Carolina — and all of them are up for grabs in 2024, Kondik said.

Before Biden dropped out, Kondik had been watching the president’s numbers falling fast in the blue wall swing states, and considered the decline a deadly sign for the Biden campaign. “If he lost in any of them, he wasn’t going to win,” Kondik said.

He said the same probably holds true for Harris, but that may change if her numbers keep going up in North Carolina and Georgia.

“The jury’s out on that,” he said.

This colorful endorsement of Harris went up recently in Madison, the capital of Wisconsin. The crucial swing state helped Trump win the presidency in 2016 — and lose it in 2020.

(Kayla Wolf / Associated Press)

Advertisement

Cornell Belcher, a pollster who worked for both Obama campaigns, said Harris may not be able to restore Obama’s broad coalition. But it “makes all the sense in the world” for her to follow Obama’s strategy of “pressing for expansion” on the electoral map, he said — “going more places and making Republicans play defense more.”

Harris has to “secure the blue wall, hard stop,” Belcher said, and will definitely be paying attention to — and spending time in — Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.

But given her brimming campaign coffers, he said, she also has the “opportunity to go on the offensive” in other vulnerable places.

North Carolina, which Obama had flipped blue, more recently elected a Democratic governor in Roy Cooper, and may see diminished Republican turnout given GOP primary voters’ selection of far-right candidates in down-ballot races, Belcher said.

“It’s absolutely an opportunity if you have the resources,” he said of the Harris campaign. “And again, they have the resources.”

Georgia, he said, is also in play, with a “well-educated, upwardly mobile population and a growing segment of minority voters” who flipped both of the state’s U.S. Senate seats blue in the last election.

“For Democrats to not tap in to these changing dynamics within these states,” Belcher said, “would be malpractice.”

Harris doesn’t have a lot of time, but Belcher and others said it’s unclear how relevant that is. This race has been moving at lightning speed, the trajectory of polling in several states turned on a dime in the last couple of weeks, and Harris’ favorability ratings shot up in record time after Biden endorsed her.

“We’re in uncharted waters,” Belcher said. “There are no road maps for all of this.”

Alexander, of Bowling Green, said he still believes that Harris has a “tougher path” to winning than Trump due to the nature of the electoral college system — and he worries 2024 could be another “misfire election,” with Trump winning the electoral college despite Harris winning the popular vote.

“In a different time,” Alexander said, “it would be seen as a constitutional crisis.”

White House National Security Council communications adviser John Kirby on Sunday dodged answering questions regarding the abrupt plea deal reversal provided to a trio of 9/11 terrorists last week. 

“Is the president willing to let these terrorists escape the harshest penalty in the system of justice and let that be part of his legacy?” Fox News’ Jacqui Heinrich asked Kirby during an interview on “Fox News Sunday.”

“Again, this was a decision made by a convening authority in the military chain of command, an independent convening authority,” Kirby responded. 

“He didn’t weigh in at all?” Heinrich pressed. 

BIDEN-HARRIS ADMINISTRATION BACKTRACKS, REVOKES PLEA DEAL FOR 9/11 TERRORISTS

“The secretary of defense has the authority to change the delegation of that – of that authority to the convening authority,” Kirby continued. “I know that sounds kind of complicated, but he has the authority to do that. He did this on his own.”

“But did the president weigh in?” Heinrich asked again. 

“This was a decision made by the secretary of defense,” Kirby said, sparking Heinrich to say that she “didn’t hear an answer.”

The Department of Defense announced last week the Convening Authority for Military Commissions entered into pretrial agreements with Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin ‘Attash, and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi. The agreement included taking the death penalty off of the table for the three 9/11 plotters. 

9/11 MASTERMIND, 2 OTHERS STRIKE PLEA DEALS WHILE AWAITING TRIAL; FAMILIES OF VICTIMS ‘VERY DISAPPOINTED’

As outrage mounted over the agreement, the White House said Biden did not play a role in the deal. 

President Biden arrives to board Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, on Aug. 15, 2023. (Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images)

“The White House learned yesterday that the Convening Authority for Military Commissions entered into pretrial agreements, negotiated by military prosecutors, with KSM and other 9/11 defendants,” a White House National Security Council spokesperson told Fox News Digital. “The President and the White House played no role in this process. The President has directed his team to consult as appropriate with officials and lawyers at the Department of Defense on this matter.” 

PLEA DEAL REVERSAL FOR 9/11 TERRORISTS WINS PRAISE AND DEMANDS FOR JUSTICE FROM VICTIMS GROUPS, REPUBLICANS

Biden has also rejected a proposal last year that would have spared the three suspects from the death penalty.

After the news broke, the Defense Department abruptly backtracked on the agreement on Friday. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has now taken the lead on the case. 

“Effective immediately, in the exercise of my authority, I hereby withdraw from the three pretrial agreements that you signed on July 31, 2024,” the letter from the secretary reads. 

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has now taken the lead on the case. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

No explanation was offered as to why the matter was not settled before the deals were concluded and publicly announced. 

Heinrich pressed Kirby whether Biden asked Austin to rescind the deals to the trio of terrorists, to which the White House spokesman responded that Austin made an “independent decision.” 

HARRIS SAYS ISRAEL HAS RIGHT TO DEFEND ITSELF AS IRAN, RUSSIA AND LEBANON CONDEMN IDF STRIKE ON HEZBOLLAH

“This was a decision made by the secretary of defense. It was an independent decision by him, certainly within his authorities, as in the chain of command at the Defense Department,” Kirby responded. 

On Sunday, Kirby also addressed ongoing efforts to broker a cease-fire in Israel as war continues raging since Oct. 7, when Hamas launched an attack that killed more than 1,200 and led to the kidnapping of hundreds more.

Spokesman John Kirby speaks during a press briefing at the White House on Tuesday. (AP/Evan Vucci)

“Number one, we still believe a cease-fire deal is the best way to bring this war to an end. It’s also, we believe, very possible. We still believe the gaps are narrow enough to close,” Kirby said. 

VANCE SLAMS 9/11 PLEA DEAL DURING RALLY: ‘NEED A PRESIDENT WHO KILLS TERRORISTS, NOT NEGOTIATES WITH THEM’

“The other thing that we’ve been doing since the 7th of October is making sure that not only Israel has what it needs to defend itself, but that this war doesn’t escalate to become something broader, a regional war, a regional conflict. And that’s what you’re seeing us do.”

Concern has grown, however, that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu does not want a cease-fire. On CNN’s “State of the Union,” deputy national security adviser Jonathan Finer said he could not weigh in on Biden’s private discussions with Netanyahu about a cease-fire deal, while noting that the two world leaders have a candid and long-established relationship. 

Deputy national security adviser Jon Finer appears on “Meet the Press” on April 24, 2022. (William B. Plowman/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images)

“I won’t speak to the private conversations that take place between the president and the prime minister. What I will say is these are two people who have a four-decade-plus relationship. One of the extraordinary assets in the US-Israel relationship is this personal relationship between these two leaders in which they can speak to each other directly and candidly. That’s been the case since President Biden came to office, it’s certainly been the case since Oct. 7,” Finer said when asked about Netanyahu potentially avoiding a cease-fire deal. 

“The United States has been extremely clear, both publicly and privately, about how urgent we think it is that the cease-fire and hostage deal be established. Nothing that’s taken place over the last week or two has changed that sense of urgency, and if anything, part of why we believe this needs to happen as quickly as possible is because in the Middle East, at a time in which there are hostilities taking place, outside factors can infect and disrupt these talks. And so we don’t want to allow that to happen.” 

Fox News Digital’s Stepheny Price contributed to this article. 

Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance told Megyn Kelly last month that Democrats are calling for an end to the Child Tax Credit because they are “anti-family and anti-kid.” Vance, who has courted controversy for calling Democrats the party of “childless cat ladies,” then declared, “We should send the signal to the culture that we are the pro-family party, and we’re gonna back it up with real policy. We’re the party of parents, we’re the party of kids.”

Republicans are using Vance’s kids and families rhetoric to convince voters to choose them in November, but they are failing when it comes to backing it up. In fact, they’re actively opposing important legislation to help children and parents.

On Thursday, Senate Republicans blocked a bill that would expand the Child Tax Credit — the very policy that Vance has championed and just accused Kamala Harris of opposing. Vance didn’t show up for the vote. Killing the proposal was a loss to roughly 16 million children in low-income working families, who would have benefited from about $700 in tax relief this year. Estimates from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities show that the proposal would have lifted at least 500,000 children above the poverty line and raised the family incomes for at least 5 million more poor children.

The Child Tax Credit isn’t just the most effective policy tool for pulling children out of poverty — it’s also one of the most popular legislative proposals in the country right now. The current bill had bipartisan support when it passed the House in a 357-70 vote in January. Polling showed that 69% of Americans supported the proposal, including 80% of Democrats, 59% of Republicans and 63% of independents. The legislation even included tax cuts for some businesses’ research and development efforts as well as investments that Republicans have long sought.

Influential business groups made it clear that they wanted the bill to pass. But Republican leadership was able to keep it from getting to a vote, even with a majority of the Senate in favor, because 60 votes are needed to break the filibuster.

The big reason that Republicans killed the Child Tax Credit measure appears to have little to do with policy. Iowa Sen. Charles E. Grassley said the quiet part out loud in January when he noted that it might “make Biden look good.”

Republicans also fought the bigger, temporary expansion of the Child Tax Credit that passed in 2021. That legislation was historic, and poverty among children was reduced by 44% to its lowest level on record while it was in effect. But during the last three years, the party demonstrated that it’s still committed to an economic program that puts tax cuts for large corporations above the well-being of children and families.

At the same time, the GOP has blocked legislation to build a universal pre-K system, enact paid family and medical leave, expand subsidies for child care and improve home care for older people and people with disabilities.

Republicans want to have it both ways, touting their pro-family agenda while blocking pro-family legislation.

Democrats shouldn’t just mock Vance’s “childless cat lady” comments or rely on legal cases, even felony convictions, to make their case in the closing months of this election campaign. The party‘s candidates need to make it clear who is standing up for children and parents.

Increasingly, Republicans are framing the parenting issue as an existential question. Focusing on policy for children and families, they argue, demonstrates a commitment to the future.

This is a debate Democrats should welcome — and one they can handily win.

Justin Talbot Zorn is a senior advisor at the Center for Economic and Policy Research. Mark Weisbrot is co-director.