the race in these states has been close from the start and in fact has been for years. specific candidates and debates and other events are going to have minimal push and pull. almost nobody is basing their votes on specific policies, people or outcomes; it's a polarized electorate.
that means that the election isn't about ideas, it's about turnout.
something that affected turnout in the polls was a third party candidate getting a good chunk of the vote, namely rfk. these are obviously disaffected voters that really want to vote "none of the above". rfk seemed to be pulling from both parties, but maybe a little more from democrats that might have hearts that lean trump and brains that scream NOOOOO.
two things happened recently.
1) biden was replaced with harris. this gave harris a very small but consistent bump that pulled her just over trump, but it really had to do with black enthusiasm in the voting models and it may turn out to be a bradley effect, in which case the election may be worse for the democrats than we expect. watch new mexico on election night. if new mexico is close, or trump wins as an upset, harris' bump was a functional bradley effect created by messing around with the data in the modelling. i'm not getting the data suggesting oregon is a potential upset, but don't be surprised if its surprisingly close. also watch minnesota.
2) rfk pulled out, which is what his father should have done. this gave trump a much larger bump.
it took a few months for it to even itself out, but the result of these two minimal shifts in projected turnout was that trump came back out in front.
the democrats are going to very seriously need to figure out how to win back young people, or they're possibly fucked for quite a while. it's not by being sympathetic to the islamic right.