Three weeks out from Election Day, the presidential race seems to be a complete tossup. There was some movement in the past week's polling, but it was so tiny and incremental it all should really be chalked up as nothing more than statistical noise. The battleground races are so close that they're all teetering ever so slightly between the two candidates, but must really be seen as too close to call, or tied.

To put it another way: this is as close as things can get, folks. There's not a lot you can say in any sort of definitive way other than "the race looks tied." Which is going to make for a shorter-than-average Electoral Math column today.

The big winner of the week (if you can call it that) would have to be the "Tied" column. States that were barely leaning one way or another shifted just enough for the polling to be a dead heat, in multiple states. Some of them moved back to leaning one way or another, but all of these states are still incredibly close and could go either way.

Having said that, let's take a look at what the charts tell us (which, admittedly, can be summed up as "not much").

The first chart shows the state-by-state polling added up for both candidates. As always, data is provided by the Electoral-Vote.com site, which tracks current polling in every state. Each state's Electoral College votes are added into the totals for both candidates, to see who has enough states to win.

Donald Trump is represented in red, from the top of the chart downwards. Kamala Harris is in blue, from the bottom up. Whichever color crosses the center 50-percent line should (if all the polling is perfectly accurate) emerge as the winner. But as mentioned, the white areas show states that are Tied, and this week that's where the action was.

[Click on any of theses graphs to see larger-scale versions.]

There was a lot of movement both into and out of the Tied column, as you can see. Tied moved from zero to 45 Electoral Votes (EV) before falling back to 10 EV at the end of the week.

Arizona moved from Trump's column to Tied the first day of the week, but then moved back to Trump two days later. Both Michigan and Pennsylvania moved from Harris to Tied before also moving right back again. Wisconsin moved from Harris's column to Tied but hasn't moved back (or to Trump) and wound up as the only state to finish the week as Tied.

Two states flipped, in the midst of all this. Nevada shifted from Harris to Trump, while Georgia shifted from Trump to Harris. I'm not all that confident that either represents any real movement, however, as they could flip back at any time with the release of new polling.

The candidates' totals bounced around but ended up almost exactly where they started. Harris began the week with 276 EV in her column, dropped down to 247 (putting her below the 270 EV needed to win, for the first time in quite a while), but then recovered right back to where they started, at 276 EV. Trump started the period with 262 EV, dropped down to 246 EV and then recovered somewhat to 252 EV.

Percentage-wise, Harris didn't change at all, ending up with 51 percent of the total EV. Trump dropped down from 49 percent to 47 percent.

Let's take a look at the relative strength of all these numbers for each candidate, starting with Trump's numbers.

As always, states are divided into three categories, depending on the state's polling margin. A lead of less than 5 points goes into the "Barely" column. A lead of 5 to 10 points means "Weak," and a lead of over 10 points is considered "Strong."

Donald Trump got some good news out of his new home state of Florida, starting the week off with a very healthy poll (showing Trump with a 13-point lead) from the Sunshine State. But a few days later a second poll showed what most of the other Florida polls have shown -- a much smaller lead for Trump. You can see all this movement easily in the chart, since Florida has 30 EV. Trump's Strong numbers spiked upwards but then the state wound up as only Weak Trump -- which was still an improvement, since previous polling had put it as only Barely Trump.

All of the other movement was in the Barely Trump category. Trump first lost Arizona (which moved to Tied), but then it moved back to Barely Trump again a few days later. A bigger loss for Trump was to see Georgia move from him to Harris, but he did at least regain part of this loss by flipping Nevada from Harris to his column.

Trump started out the week with 262 EV, then fell to 251 EV and then 246 EV. He climbed back up to 252 EV, for a net loss of 10 EV for the week. This leaves him 18 EV short of the goal (270 EV).

As mentioned, Trump started out by improving his Strong number from 111 EV to 141 EV (with that one good Florida poll), but when the state moved down to Weak, it left Trump with the same 111 EV in the Strong category that he started with. His big improvement was that Florida didn't slip all the way back down to Barely, so Trump's Weak numbers went from 72 EV to 102 EV as a result. However, this came at the expense of his Barely numbers, which fell from 79 EV to 38 EV, then down to 33 EV before recovering a bit up to 39 EV.

As always, the stat that I look at the closest is the "Strong plus Weak" number. And Trump had an excellent week with the addition of Florida, moving from 183 EV up to 213 EV. This is the strongest showing he's had here since late August.

So let's take a look at how Harris did last week, to compare:

Kamala Harris wound up in the same place she started, but there was a lot of movement nonetheless. Harris started off the week by losing both Michigan and Wisconsin to Tied, although Michigan moved right back to Barely Harris the next day. Wisconsin still remains tied, however, so this was a major blow in the Rust Belt or "Big Blue Wall" states she is counting on. Pennsylvania also flipped from Barely Harris to Tied before moving back to Barely Harris -- another sign of the relative weakness of her lead.

Two states flipped between the candidates this week. Nevada flipped from Barely Harris to Barely Trump, but Harris picked up an even bigger prize when Georgia flipped from Barely Trump to Barely Harris. This resulted in a net gain of 10 EV for Harris, which was exactly enough to replace the loss of Wisconsin's 10 EV.

I'm not sure how much stock to put in that Georgia poll, though, as most other polling from the state shows either a tie or a slight edge for Trump. Likewise, I am not convinced that Trump has truly opened up a lead in Nevada, since polling there is always somewhat of a crap shoot.

As you can see in the chart, Harris had no movement at all in her Strong and Weak numbers. She started the week with 189 EV in Strong and 37 EV in Weak, and that's exactly where she wound up. Her "Strong plus Weak" line also stayed the same, at 226 EV.

Harris saw her Barely numbers bounce way down before recovering, going from 50 EV down to 25 EV and 21 EV before recovering to 31 EV and then finally back up to the 50 EV she had at the start of the week.

Overall, this meant Harris dropped from 276 EV down to 247 EV before moving right back up to 276 EV once again. As you can see, this dropped her below the magic 270 EV line for the first time in over a month, which is not exactly a good thing to see, heading into the homestretch.

 

My Picks

Moving along to the part of the program where my gut feelings influence my picks, I have to say my gut is feeling rather unsure of things right now. Mostly this means I have reconsidered last week's rather bold moves and shuffled things around without coming up with any solid projections.

As always, scroll down if you'd like to see the full data for all of these categories (states listed with their EV totals for each).

Also as usual, all of these picks are divided into "Safe," "Probable," and "Leaning" for each candidate, with a final "Too Close To Call" category at the end.

 

Likely States -- Harris

Safe Harris (20 states, 226 EV)
No changes this week. All the Safe Harris states stayed safe for her.

Probable Harris (0 states, 0 EV)
Michigan, the only state in this category last week, moved down to just Lean Harris. The polling was essentially tied all week, although I still think Harris retains a slight edge here (which is why I didn't move it all the way down to Too Close To Call). Perhaps this is unfounded optimism, but we'll have to wait and see.

 

Likely States -- Trump

Safe Trump (20 states, 126 EV)
No changes this week. All the Safe Trump states stayed safe for him.

Probable Trump (4 states, 93 EV)
Also no changes this week. A case could be made that Florida should move up to Safe Trump, since it posted one very good poll for him, but a second poll showed a much closer race so for the time being Florida stays as only Likely Trump.

 

Tossup States

Lean Harris (1 state, 15 EV)
After being too optimistic about Michigan last week, I had to move it back down to just Lean Harris this time around. But the bigger news is that both Nevada and Wisconsin now have to be seen as Too Close To Call. Either state could go either way, at this point.

Lean Trump (0 states, 0 EV)
Trump also lost two Lean states this week, as Georgia and Arizona also have to be seen as Too Close To Call this week. Trump may have opened up a small lead in Arizona, but we need a few more polls before I can even move the state back to Lean Trump, I think.

Too Close To Call (6 states, 78 EV)
This leaves six battleground states as anyone's guess this week: Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. I realize this is the equivalent of throwing up my hands and saying: "Anything could happen!" but that's where we seem to be, folks.

 

Final Tally

Both candidates got some good news and some bad in the polling this week, but the upshot is neither one has a clear edge on the other. Kamala Harris dropped one state from her Probable category this week (Michigan), dropping her overall number for Safe and Probable down from 241 EV to 226 EV. Trump stayed exactly the same in Safe and Probable, with 219 EV. That's only 7 EV behind Harris, you will note, and it leaves both candidates with far to go to reach the winning 270 EV mark.

I moved all the states from both candidates' Leaning categories down to Too Close To Call this week, but I left Michigan as a Lean state for Harris (which may also be too optimistic, I will admit). This left Harris with just Michigan's 15 EV in Leaning Harris, and it left Trump with zero Leaning states.

This left Harris with a total of 241 EV (adding together her Safe, Probable, and Lean states), if Michigan is truly in her column. But that is 29 EV short of the goal. Trump, on the other hand, has a total of 219 EV, which puts him at a bigger disadvantage, since he's got to pick up 51 EV to cross the finish line.

This is all due to the Too Close To Call category swelling up to a whopping 78 EV for six states.

Maybe we'll start to see some definitive movement in one direction or the other this week. Maybe either Harris or Trump will see a late-breaking groundswell of support in the battleground states.

Or maybe this is going to wind up as the closest election since the Gore/Bush contest in 2000. At this point, that seems like the safest bet.

 

[Full Data:]
(State electoral votes are in parenthesis following each state's name -- and please note a lot of these have changed since 2020, due to the reallocation of House seats after the Census. Washington D.C. is counted as a state, for a total of 51.)

Kamala Harris Likely Easy Wins -- 20 States -- 226 Electoral Votes:

Safe States -- 20 States -- 226 Electoral Votes
California (54), Colorado (10), Connecticut (7), Delaware (3), Hawai'i (4), Illinois (19), Maine (4), Maryland (10), Massachusetts (11), Minnesota (10), New Hampshire (4), New Jersey (14), New Mexico (5), New York (28), Oregon (8), Rhode Island (4), Vermont (3), Virginia (13), Washington D.C. (3), Washington (12)

Probable States -- 0 States -- 0 Electoral Votes

 

Donald Trump Likely Easy Wins -- 24 States -- 219 Electoral Votes:

Safe States -- 20 States -- 126 Electoral Votes
Alabama (9), Alaska (3), Arkansas (6), Idaho (4), Indiana (11), Kansas (6), Kentucky (8), Louisiana (8), Mississippi (6), Missouri (10), Montana (4), Nebraska (5), North Dakota (3), Oklahoma (7), South Carolina (9), South Dakota (3), Tennessee (11), Utah (6), West Virginia (4), Wyoming (3)

Probable States -- 4 States -- 93 Electoral Votes
Florida (30), Iowa (6), Ohio (17), Texas (40)

 

Tossup States -- 7 States -- 93 Electoral Votes:

Tossup States Leaning Harris -- 1 State -- 15 Electoral Votes
Michigan (15)

Tossup States Leaning Trump -- 0 States -- 0 Electoral Votes
 

Too Close To Call -- 6 States -- 78 Electoral Votes
Arizona (11), Georgia (16), Nevada (6), North Carolina (16), Pennsylvania (19), Wisconsin (10)

 

Polling data gaps:

[Note: during the primaries, Zogby conducted a poll in every state on April 21, with the sole exception of Washington D.C., which has had no polling at all this cycle. But I thought it'd be more useful to keep track here of which states have not been polled since Joe Biden dropped out of the race.]

New polling data -- 0 States
(States polled with Harris for the first time since our previous column, with the dates of the new poll in parenthesis.)

[None]

No polling data with Harris -- 13 States
(States which have not been polled since July 21st, with the dates of their last poll in parenthesis.)

Alabama (4/21), Hawai'i (4/21), Idaho (4/21), Kansas (4/21), Kentucky (4/21), Louisiana (4/26), Mississippi (4/21), New Jersey (4/21), North Dakota (4/21), Oregon (4/21), South Dakota (5/13), Washington D.C. (--), Wyoming (4/21)

 

-- Chris Weigant

 

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant