Harris vs. Trump: If results match poll averages, CNN analyst says this candidate will win

CNN’s Harry Enten said that one candidate will reach 270 electoral votes if the results match the polling averages—but emphasized that the race is still too close to call.
Enten said Monday on CNN that according to an aggregate of battleground state polling, Vice President Kamala Harris leads in the Great Lakes states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin while former President Donald Trump leads in the swing states of Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and Georgia.
If these polling averages match the results, Enten said that Harris would reach the necessary 270 electoral votes to win while Trump would earn 268 votes.
“If you put the polls to the electoral map, Kamala Harris carries these Great Lake battleground states despite losing all of the Sunbelt battleground states…. You get to 270 electoral votes. That is as tight as it can possibly be,” Enten told anchor John Berman.
He said that the 2024 projection is even closer than the 2000 projection, which had Democrat Al Gore winning with 281 votes based on polling averages at the time before Election Day.
“Right now, 270 in 2024. That is the tightest that the polls have ever been projected on the electoral map—even tighter than 2000 when Al Gore was projected to get 281 electoral votes—since 1972. The bottom line is, Mr. Berman, it is historically tight at the end of this campaign,” Enten said.
Here is Enten’s aggregate of the battleground state polls:
Enten also emphasized that while the electoral map of polling averages projects a nail-biters of a race, there is still a 60 percent chance that the election will be a blowout by either candidate. He said that there is a likely chance the election will be a sweep because the average error in swing state polling is about 3.4 percentage points. No candidate has a lead over more than 3 points, according to Enten.
“So you know, if you were basically to model this out, as a bunch of folks do, will the 2024 winner get 300 plus electoral votes? A majority chance of yes, they will get at least 300 electoral votes, a relative blowout in today’s day and age. The minority is at 40 percent, ‘no,’ that the winner will get less than 300 electoral votes,” he said.
“How the heck is that possible? Well, essentially, if you look back at swing state polling averages since 1972, the average error in the swing states is 3.4 points. And of course, all of the seven closest battleground states are within three points,” he said.
To conclude, Enten conceded that is “historically tight” and “basically any scenario is on the table.”
National and swing state polls show Harris and Trump locked in a neck-and-neck race with just hours to go before Election Day. To win, one candidate must reach the necessary 270 electoral votes across the states. However, the race will likely come down to the seven battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
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