In a stunning shift just before Election Day, Vice President Kamala Harris has taken the lead in Nevada, a crucial battleground state, according to the latest model from election analytics firm 338Canada.
After trailing former President Donald Trump for much of October, Harris is now projected to win Nevada with a 53% to 47% margin.
This shift has raised Harris’s odds of winning the Electoral College to 75%, as she now holds an estimated 276 electoral votes—six more than the critical threshold of 270.
The Nevada lead represents a turning point in a tight race, with 338Canada’s model showing Harris in a stronger position compared to previous predictions, which had kept her and Trump nearly neck-and-neck in several states.
Meanwhile, polling aggregator FiveThirtyEight presents a slightly different picture, giving Trump a slim lead in Nevada at 47.9% to Harris’s 47.3%, underscoring the fierce competition for swing-state votes.
Despite Trump maintaining slight leads in Arizona, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania, Harris has secured small but critical advantages in Michigan and Wisconsin, per FiveThirtyEight’s latest data.
Her momentum has also been bolstered by recent favorable polls, including a “mega poll” conducted in the United Kingdom and the New York Times/Sienna College’s surveys in key battleground states.
Polls from The Des Moines Register in Iowa indicate a possible upset, showing Harris with a narrow lead in a traditionally Republican state, although this falls within the poll’s margin of error.
In response, Trump’s campaign released a memo challenging the polling data, arguing it aims to “diminish voter enthusiasm.”
Election analysts caution, however, about potential polling inaccuracies.
Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight pointed out that Trump supporters tend to have lower civic engagement and may be less inclined to participate in polls, which could affect survey accuracy.
Nonetheless, Harris’s recent Nevada lead indicates a potentially decisive shift as voters head to the polls.
With the stakes higher than ever, both campaigns are focusing their efforts on these final hours.
The impact of Nevada’s projected flip—and of the turnout efforts among Black women and other key voter demographics—will soon be seen as the nation’s votes are tallied.
