Everything that has flipped since Harris took over the ticket

Vice President Kamala Harris has seen consistent momentum since she entered the presidential race after President Joe Biden dropped out last month, with the race for the White House being turned on its head.

Former President Donald Trump had built a substantial advantage over Biden after a June debate fueled concerns about Biden’s age and mental acuity, resulting in the president tanking in the polls. In the month since Biden’s decision to drop out, many facets of the campaign have changed in favor of the Democrats.

State of the race

Before Harris entered the race, Trump was riding high. Biden’s nightmarish debate performance, combined with a generally well-received Republican National Convention and an assassination attempt on Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, made a second Trump term appear imminent. Democrats were having widely reported feuds about whether Biden should continue as the nominee, and downballot Democrats were suffering the effects of Biden’s unpopularity.

A month after Biden decided to drop out of the race, Harris has moved through the honeymoon phase of her candidacy and hasn’t faced serious opposition. Trump’s numbers continue to fall, and the race has tightened significantly, with Harris overtaking Trump in the Real Clear Politics polling average by 1.5 points.

Harris has continued Biden’s policy of shying away from interviews with the press, something that could come back to bite her if she makes a misstep in a big moment, but the strategy hasn’t caused her problems. She has revealed few hard policy plans beyond banning “price gouging” and echoing Trump’s calls not to tax tips.

Fundraising

In nearly all recent elections, Democrats have held a fundraising advantage over their Republican opponents, but as Biden dropped support last month, many major donors stopped their donations, and the Trump campaign had a cash advantage over the Biden campaign.

With the momentum around Harris’s campaign, fundraising from donors amped up, and the Harris campaign took back the cash advantage from the Trump campaign at the end of July.

On Wednesday, Reuters reported Harris has brought in $500 million since Biden dropped out exactly one month ago. That total comes after Harris’s campaign, which was reorganized from the Biden campaign, reported $310 million raised in July, for $377 million cash on hand.

Last month, the Trump campaign reported $139 million raised in the month and $327 million cash on hand.

Swing states

Election analysts have taken the new complexion of the presidential race into account and recalibrated which states are going to be the most important.

The Cook Political Report had moved the swing states of Arizona, Nevada, and Georgia to “lean Republican” from “toss-up” in July as Biden had fallen in the polls, but earlier this month, all three of those states were shifted back to the “toss-up” category.

Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics had moved Michigan away from Democrats to a “toss-up” after the disastrous debate for Biden and warned of a doomsday map if Democrats were unable to stop the bleeding.

Since Harris took over the Democratic ticket, Sabato’s Crystal Ball moved Georgia back from “lean Republican” to a “toss-up” after having rated it as such prior to June, and on Tuesday, the group moved North Carolina from “lean Republican” to “toss-up.”

The North Carolina shift was due to recent polling, according to the group, but most other outlets still rate the state as “lean” or “tilt” Republican. The Tar Heel State has not voted for a Democrat for president since 2008.