“The tightest race since 2000”: Harris-Trump confrontation reaches home stretch until Election Day

Saturday marks one month until Election Day on November 5.

As the presidential campaign enters its final stretch, it remains a race for the margin of error nationally and in the seven key battleground states that could determine the winner of the election between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Trump.

The two presidents of the national parties are confident of their chances.

“We’re playing offense right now,” Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley said in an interview with Fox News Digital earlier this week. “We feel very, very good about the card.”

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His counterpart, Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison, told reporters Friday that “enthusiasm is acceptable in our party.”

But Harrison stressed that “we know this election will be decided at the margins, and we are not taking any vote for granted.”

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Since replacing President Biden at the top of the Democratic 2024 ticket in mid-July, Harris has enjoyed a surge of momentum and benefited from an increase in fundraising. In the all-important money rush, Harris and the DNC appear to hold a large advantage over Trump and the RNC.

And it helped solidify what was already a very impressive organizational advantage on the ground that Democrats held over Republicans.

“We started laying the foundation well before 2024 by investing in our ground game,” Harrison emphasized. “We have been on the ground since the first days of this campaign to get our message across.”

The DNC chair touted that there are “more than 312 coordinated offices in battleground states,” with “more than 2,000 coordinated staff…doing the hard work on the ground.”

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But Whatley wasn’t phased.

“Democrats have a lot of money. Democrats always have a lot of money,” Whatley said, noting that Trump was outraged in the 2016 and 2020 elections.

The RNC Chairman emphasized that “we have the resources we need to deliver our message to our voters and to every voter. I feel very, very comfortable with the campaign plan.”

And while the Harris campaign and allied groups have outspent Trump and his aligned groups in the ad wars, Whatley highlighted the former president’s ability to capture media freedom.

“Donald Trump speaks to voters every day in a way that only he can. He can generate information. He can go out there and generate hits on social media. He can communicate directly with American voters like no other politician of America. our generation, so it’s a huge advantage for us,” he said.

Veteran Democratic pollster Chris Anderson, who conducted the Fox News poll with longtime Republican pollster Daron Shaw, said with four weeks to go, “my expectations for plausible results range from a narrow Electoral College victory for Trump to a slightly more comfortable victory for Harris. “.

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But even though Harris holds a slight two-point advantage in the national survey average, Shaw noted that “the issue profile of this election continues to favor Trump.”

Wayne Lesperance, a veteran political scientist and president of New England College, said that “this presidential election is shaping up to be one of the closest in history, and the results will likely be slow in coming.”

And longtime Republican consultant Matt Gorman, a veteran of many GOP presidential campaigns, stressed that “we’re bracing for the closest race since 2000.”

“There are no more debates. There will be an information vacuum,” he warned. “It is an integral part of the Trump campaign to fill that void with a message that puts Harris on the defensive.”

Trump, like Biden, is a well-known commodity.

But Harris, even after being in the spotlight for nearly two months, is still less well defined.

“The more voters know about Vice President Harris, the more they like her,” said Democratic strategist and communicator Chris Moyer.

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“It’s imperative that she continues to get in front of voters in swing states, and she could afford to do more in the final weeks,” he offered. “She’s expected to invade key states, filling her schedule with rallies, local interviews and unofficial stops that produce shareable clips that bounce across social media. They’ve run a near-perfect race so far, but Many voters continue to want to know more about who she is, what she believes and what she will do as president.

With a month to go, there is always the possibility of an October surprise that could swing the race for the White House.

The dockers’ strike earlier this week – which led to the closure of major ports – could have wreaked havoc on the country’s supply chain. It might have come as a surprise in October, but the strike was suspended after just two days.

Hurricane Helene, which wreaked havoc across the Southeast, also impacted the presidential race — and one remembers how Superstorm Sandy shook up the White House race in 2012 between then-President Obama and Republican candidate Mitt Romney.

And conflicts in the Middle East – between Israel, Iran and Hezbollah – also threaten to upend the election.

It’s important to note that even though Election Day is a month away, in more than two dozen states, in-person early voting, mail-in voting, and mail-in voting are already underway.

Get the latest 2024 election campaign updates, exclusive interviews and more on our Fox News Digital election hub.