Vice President Kamala Harris is, for all intents and purposes, the incumbent in the race for the presidency. She is the current vice president, has been "the last one in the room" for key decisions made by the Biden-Harris administration and, oh yeah, the current administration billed itself as the "Biden-Harris administration."

And despite all the claims of "joy" and "excitement" and "momentum," the race is, effectively, a tie. And a tie, as Harry Enten pointed out earlier this week, is all but a loss for Harris.

Pretty clear that Harris is ahead nationally right now... and I don't think it matters all that much... Her advantage in the battlegrounds is basically nil.

Average it all, Harris' chance of winning the popular vote is 70%. Her chance of winning the electoral college is 50%. pic.twitter.com/GzL7gUhxDv

— (((Harry Enten))) (@ForecasterEnten) September 16, 2024

So maybe it shouldn't be a surprise that Harris doesn't want people paying attention to the polls. But it is a surprise that she would say it out loud to a favorable crowd in Wisconsin.

“46 days until the election. And, what we know, this is going to be a tight race until the very end. So, let’s not pay too much attention to the polls because let’s be clear, we are the underdog in this race and we have some hard work ahead of us,” Harris said at a rally in Wisconsin.

Harris has a 3.6 percentage point lead over Trump nationally, according to The Hill/Decision Desk HQ aggregate polling. Out of the seven battleground states, Harris has the largest lead in Wisconsin, up on Trump by 2 percentage points.

Nationally, Harris has taken the lead in pollster Nate Silver’s election forecast and model for the first time since Aug. 28, ahead in the polling aggregation with 48.9 percent to Trump’s 46.1 percent.

Along with the request that her voters not pay attention to the polls, she actually said she, the incumbent in this race, is the underdog. That's not a great admission for Harris and one she doesn't want to be saying out loud if she can help it. But, she can't help it because Kamala Harris and smart things to say are natural enemies.

Which is probably harsh of me to say, but it's not inaccurate. At best, she is KamalaGPT, capable of churning out two words with the value of zero words.

This might just be the most spectacular two minutes of Kamala’s nonsensical wisdom I have ever heard. pic.twitter.com/VkeCA2oLew

— Kate Hyde (@KateHydeNY) September 20, 2024

At worst, however, Harris is her own worst enemy. Admitting she hasn't changed her values, when her values are what got her booted from the Democratic primary in 2016 before the first primary was even held, was dumb. Saying she is the underdog in a race where she is the incumbent and telling voters to ignore the polls is also dumb.

But, ultimately, she is correct. Her values have not changed, she is the underdog, and her supporters shouldn't look at the polls because those numbers do not inspire folks with rational brains to believe she is winning. 

It is Donald Trump's race to lose, and she is the underdog. But he is capable of losing it, and she is capable of accidentally falling into the White House as our chief executive.