Kamala Harris and Donald J. Trump are tied at 48 percent in the final New York Times/Siena College national poll of the cycle Friday.
When minor party candidates are included, Mr. Trump leads by one percentage point.
It goes without saying that this shows an extremely close race — and it’s not the only poll to do so. Over the last week or so, several high-quality polls have showed a tied race or even had Mr. Trump pulling ahead. A Wall Street Journal poll, for instance, found Mr. Trump up three points, while CNBC showed him two points ahead.
The New York Times’s polling average has Ms. Harris’s lead down to one point, as of late Thursday.
All of this raises a possibility that few people would have contemplated at the beginning of the cycle: a Trump victory in the national popular vote.
Democrats have won the national popular vote in seven of the last eight presidential elections — often enough for many to be lulled into the belief that Democrats have a lock on it. Many of these popular vote victories, however, have been close. A Republican win has been conceivable on several occasions, and even though it didn’t happen, it certainly could have under slightly different circumstances.
If Mr. Trump did win the popular vote this time, it would be straightforward to explain. The poll shows that Ms. Harris faces real headwinds — the kind that would ordinarily cost a candidate the election:
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Just 28 percent of voters say the country is on the right track. No party has retained the White House (or won the popular vote) when such a small share of voters think things are going well.
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President Biden’s approval rating is just 40 percent. No party has held the White House (or won the popular vote) when the president’s approval rating is that low.
There are deeper challenges for Ms. Harris as well. Mr. Trump has an advantage on the most important issue, the economy. And more generally, more voters say they trust him on whatever issue they care about most.
Of course, Ms. Harris could easily win the national vote. Mr. Trump has plenty of his own weaknesses — including some that have returned to the fore this week, like his former chief of staff John Kelly’s comment that he fit the definition of a fascist. But together, there’s more than enough here to make it easy to imagine a Trump popular vote victory.
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