The final polls are in. The last week of the campaign is over. The only thing left is Election Day and counting up all the votes.

There has been quite a bit of movement in the polling this week, and almost all of it has been good news for Kamala Harris. It's looking like Donald Trump peaked about a week too early, in fact. Harris seems to have created some last-minute momentum, and last-minute momentum can decide close races like this.

This election cycle may, in fact, go down in history as the only one where a candidate sprang his own "October surprise" on himself. A whole lot of undecided voters have been specifically citing Trump's Madison Square Garden rally as the reason they decided to vote for Harris. Trump's hate-fest reminded a lot of voters of the absolute chaos they could expect for four years if he wins, and it has turned them away from Trump. This isn't limited to Puerto Ricans, either (although they could prove to be crucial in Pennsylvania). Trump's closing argument seems to be: "All the craziness, and twice the racism!" and it is motivating voters to choose Harris instead.

Continuing the trend that really began in 2020 (in the dark days of COVID), early voting has caught on in a big way. As of this writing, over 75 million Americans have already voted. These numbers were higher back in 2020 (when everyone was afraid of face-to-face interactions), but what it signifies is that the changes instituted for the pandemic convinced a whole bunch of voters that it is a lot easier and more convenient to vote early (by mail, in person, by drop box) than it is to try to fit it into a weekday. I fully expect early voting to become the most popular way to cast a ballot in future elections as well. What it all means is anyone's guess, in terms of which candidate will benefit more. The early-voting numbers may just mean a far lower number on Election Day, rather than signifying a boost in anyone's turnout.

Because this is the final column in the Electoral Vote series for 2024, I will not be hedging any bets and instead will make my picks for every state. Most of these are pure guesses, I should mention, since the polling has been so tight that literally anything could happen tomorrow night (and on into the rest of the week, if things are really close). Trump could sweep all the battlegrounds and win or Harris could sweep them all herself. Either is a definite possibility at this point.

But as I said, the last-minute momentum sure does seem to be on Harris's side. Let's take a final look at our charts to see what the data has been showing this week.

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. The white areas in between show states that are perfectly Tied.

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

Five states flipped this week, and Harris saw gains in four of them. Nevada went from Trump's column to Tied and then wound up in Harris's column. Wisconsin flipped from Trump straight to Harris. Pennsylvania went from Tied to Trump, back to Tied, and then to Harris. And North Carolina went from Trump to Tied. The only state which didn't follow this trend was Arizona, which went from Trump to Tied, then to Harris, back to Tied, and wound up back in Trump's column today.

The upshot of all this movement was a steady climb in Harris's standing, as you can see. She started off the week with only 241 Electoral Votes (EV) in her column, then saw this rise to 251 EV, 262 EV, and finally 276 EV -- which is 6 EV more than she needs to win.

Trump's numbers were the reverse, heading steadily downward all week. He started off with 278 EV, rose briefly to 280 EV before falling back to 270 EV, 251 EV, and finally 246 EV. The week ended with only one state (North Carolina) in the Tied column.

Harris gained 35 EV this week, while Trump lost 32 EV. This is what last-minute momentum looks like, folks. By percentage, Harris went from 44.7 percent of the Electoral College votes to 51.3 percent. Trump fell from 51.6 percent down to 45.7 percent.

So let's take a quick look at the charts of each candidate's relative strength before we get to our final picks.

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."

As mentioned, there just wasn't much in the way of good news for Donald Trump this week. He lost Nevada, Wisconsin, North Carolina, and Arizona and only managed to wrest Arizona back, in the end.

Trump's Strong and Weak numbers did not budge at all, and he finished with the same 114 EV in Strong and 99 EV in Weak that he started with. But in his Barely column, he went from 65 EV all the way down to 33 EV, a loss of almost half. Since neither category budged, Trump finished with the same 213 EV in "Strong plus Weak" as he began with.

Trump went from a winning 278 EV down to a losing 246 EV, when you total it all up. He now needs to add 24 EV to put together a winning number.

Harris's chart was a lot more positive this week:

Not only did Kamala Harris improve overall this week, she improved internally as well. Three states got stronger for her: Minnesota, New Jersey, and Maine. Minnesota moved from Barely Harris to Weak Harris, while both New Jersey and Maine moved from Weak Harris to Strong Harris (although, in the case of New Jersey, this wasn't any big shift in preference, just the fact that they hadn't been polled in many months).

Harris also picked up Nevada, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania from Trump, while moving North Carolina out of Trump's column to merely Tied.

From the bottom of the chart upwards, Harris improved her Strong numbers from 176 EV up to 194 EV, a gain of 18 EV. She briefly improved her Weak number from 36 EV up to 46 EV (that little notch in the middle line), but then her Weak number fell back to 28 EV by the end of the week. Which was actually good news for her, since the states migrated to Strong, not the other direction. Adding together Strong plus Weak, Harris improved from 212 EV up to 222 EV for the week.

But her Barely category saw the most movement, starting at 29 EV and rising to 54 EV by week's end. As you can see, this put her back over the winning threshold once again, as her overall total rose from 241 EV up to 276 EV -- 6 EV more than she needs to win the race.

My Picks

Which brings me to my final picks for the 2024 campaign. I have to begin by saying I do not have a very high degree of confidence that my picks will resemble the actual outcome. This whole election has been very close, once Joe Biden turned over the reins to Kamala Harris. Harris enjoyed a big bounce in the polls at the very start, and generated a lot of enthusiasm for her campaign from the beginning. She initially campaigned on "joy" and predicted it would be a "vibes election." As things came down to the wire, she shifted into more traditional attacks on her opponent, while Donald Trump seemed to stop her bounce in the polls just short of having a clear lead. Trump was even generating his own miniature bounce in the polls over the past month or so, but he seems to have peaked too early.

Elections can (and often do) come down to which way the public shifts in the closing days of a campaign. Trump's closing argument (if you can call it that) has been so all over the map it's tough to even state what his campaign theme is at the moment. He dialed up the hate and fear-mongering as far as he could, but he may just have gone a step too far in this direction. Now that people are facing actually having to vote, they have been reminded of the nonstop chaotic circus that was Trump's entire first term in office.

Harris has made one message central to her campaign: "Turn the page." She wants to see America turn the page on Donald Trump, plain and simple. She wants to make him a two-time loser. She wants to see the Republican Party finally realize that following Trump is doing them no good at all. If she is successful tomorrow night, it certainly would create an opening for the GOP to move back to where they were before Trump entered the scene. There's no guarantee this will happen, however. Trump could even immediately announce he's going to run in 2028 (which wouldn't surprise me in the least). Even if he does hang up his spurs, there are plenty of Republicans who have seen how successful Trump's schtick was, and they may try emulating his style in the future.

But that's getting pretty far ahead of things, of course. For now, we've got to get through Election Day (and Election Night -- if not "Election Week"). So without hedging, without the cop-out of "Too Close To Call," here are my picks for the 2024 election. Feel free to share your own picks, if you think I've gotten things wildly wrong.

Safe Harris 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)

Safe Trump States -- 24 States -- 219 Electoral Votes
Alabama (9), Alaska (3), Arkansas (6), Florida (30), Idaho (4), Indiana (11), Iowa (6), Kansas (6), Kentucky (8), Louisiana (8), Mississippi (6), Missouri (10), Montana (4), Nebraska (5), North Dakota (3), Ohio (17), Oklahoma (7), South Carolina (9), South Dakota (3), Tennessee (11), Texas (40), Utah (6), West Virginia (4), Wyoming (3)

These all seem pretty solid to me, with a couple of minor exceptions. I'm pretty confident that Kamala Harris is going to win New Hampshire, although there was one outlier poll showing her tied with Trump. Every single other poll, however, has shown Harris with a pretty comfortable lead, so it's an easy pick to leave this in her column.

On the other side, Donald Trump is almost certain to win Iowa, even though a well-respected poll (that was right in the past two election cycles) showed Harris with a small lead. A different poll released at the same time showed Trump with a huge lead, however. There hasn't been a ton of polling done in Iowa (and some have showed a surprisingly close race) but in the end I think it's a pretty safe bet to leave it in Trump's column.

New Jersey finally had a poll (the first one since April), and it showed precisely what I've been thinking all along -- it's a very safe state for Harris.

And one final footnote -- I didn't include this in any of these columns, but I am expecting Harris to win the "blue dot" district in Nebraska while Trump wins the state, and Trump to win the "red dot" district in Maine while Harris wins the state. These will cancel each other out, in essence (I have marked them on the map, below).

Here is what the map of just the safe states for both candidates looks like (created at the excellent 270ToWin site, where you can create your own map of your picks, if you'd like):

As you can see, both candidates are far short of the 270 EV magic number. Kamala Harris needs 44 EV to cross the finish line, while Donald Trump needs 51 EV. Which brings us to the hard part -- calling the battleground states one way or the other.

Close States

Arizona (11)
We're going to do this in alphabetical order, I should mention. So we start with Arizona, which has flipped between the two candidates several times over the course of the race. It even flipped back and forth over the past week, moving from Barely Trump to Tied to Barely Harris, back to Tied, and then back to Barely Trump. However, Trump seems to have had a slight edge here for months -- the last time (before this week) the state registered as Barely Harris was late August. There could be "reverse coattails" that Harris might benefit from, since a Democrat looks likely to win the Senate race and there is an abortion rights measure on the ballot as well. But even with that, I am going to reluctantly put Arizona in Trump's column.

Georgia (16)
Georgia has also flipped between the candidates several times over the course of the campaign, but as with Arizona, Trump seems to have a very slight edge in most of the polling. Harris could score an upset victory here (especially if she does better than expected getting Black voters to turn out), and the polls have tightened in the final days, but I am also going to hand Georgia's 16 EV to Trump.

Michigan (15)
Of all the battleground states, Kamala Harris seems to be doing the best in Michigan. She has polled pretty consistently well here, and she seems to have built a solid edge over Trump. So this is a pretty easy pick, because I think Harris will easily win Michigan.

Nevada (6)
Nevada is a notoriously hard state to poll, and it has flipped back and forth between the candidates regularly. Currently it is in Barely Harris, but was Barely Trump just last week, for instance. Nevertheless, since about August Harris has seemed to have a slight edge here, and I am betting that this edge holds and Nevada chalks up a win for Harris tomorrow night.

North Carolina (16)
This is going to be the least-confident pick I make this year, as it is mostly just gut feeling. North Carolina has gone back and forth repeatedly throughout the campaign, and from the raw numbers Trump might have built up a slight edge here. But he's not winning every poll, and the state is currently the only one in the Tied column. But I am going out on a limb and predicting that Harris will pull out a surprise victory here. I think the effects of the hurricane on Trump-leaning counties will depress the turnout slightly, and I think that might just be enough of an edge for Harris to win. It will not surprise me if I am wrong in this pick, but it feels like Harris has enough of a chance here to make a prediction that she'll pull of the upset.

Pennsylvania (19)
Pennsylvania might prove to be the Keystone State for the 2024 election, as many have been predicting all along. Whichever candidate wins Pennsylvania might wind up winning the whole race, to put it another way. And we may not know who has won it for days (due to Republicans in the legislature mandating that they use the slowest possible way of counting). Harris has held a slight edge here for a while, but the state did flip this week from Tied to Barely Trump, back to Tied, and then to Barely Harris. So it's really anyone's guess which way it will go. I am going to put my faith in the large population of Puerto Ricans in the state and predict it will wind up in Harris's column, though.

Wisconsin (10)
After the two hardest states to call, we end up with an easier one. While the state has flipped a number of times, Harris seems to have built up a pretty consistent edge here. She has led in almost every poll since the end of July, in fact. So it's a fairly easy call to say that Wisconsin will go for Harris tomorrow night.

My Electoral College Prediction

When you total it all up, here's what you get:

Kamala Harris -- 292 Electoral Votes

Donald Trump -- 246 Electoral Votes

Here's what my final map looks like:

As I said, I don't make these predictions with all that high a degree of confidence. But then I am not alone -- nobody is out there confidently asserting any of their picks either. What has been true all along is still true -- this is going to be one of the closest presidential elections in American history. The polling is so tight that anything from a Trump sweep of all the battleground states to a Harris sweep is eminently possible. The polling could be wrong -- in either direction. There may be "shy" voters out there that the pollsters never talked to -- for either candidate. The election could be determined by new voters (people who haven't voted before), and pollsters routinely discount such people.

After the experience of 2020, not only does nobody know right now who is going to win, we might not even find that out for days. If some states are incredibly close, they'll have to count every single vote before we know who wins the whole race. Of course, I'll be watching the results come in tomorrow night (along with everybody else), and I even have a built-in advantage, since I live on the West Coast (and will be able to stay up later than those further east). But that might not be enough -- we could all be waiting on pins and needles for the rest of the week, as indeed happened last time.

If Donald Trump loses, it won't even end with the counting. Team Trump is all set to go with hundreds of court cases, in multiple states. They'll make wild claims (the same as they did last time) and they might even try to disrupt the Electoral College process (as they did last time).

I close this quadrennial column series by urging everyone who is eligible to get out and vote tomorrow (if you haven't already cast your ballot). Because every vote might indeed be necessary.

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

New Jersey (10/22), Wyoming (10/27)

No polling data with Harris -- 8 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), Kentucky (4/21), Louisiana (4/26), Mississippi (4/21), North Dakota (4/21), Washington D.C. (--)

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant