To quote Groundhog Day: Well, here we are in Punxsutawney, PA ... again. 

Welcome to Election Day, where we plan to continually provide analysis during the day and then live-blog the entire night. We will once again partner with DecisionDesk HQ to provide real-time vote data this evening and look for their calls on the key states. 

Voting will have already started, but the pre-vote polling has concluded. In RCP's aggregation, the national polls ended in a dead heat at 48.5% for both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. That's no es bueno for Democrats, who need a fairly substantial lead in national polling to win the Electoral College, thanks to the limit of overwhelming popular vote majorities in California and New York. It doesn't look good in the battleground states either:

More: https://t.co/K7vCIXjOEp pic.twitter.com/hCl9JKIB6l

— RealClearPolling (@RCPolling) November 4, 2024

Those Blue Wall states that looked so good for Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden turned into Democrat nightmares in 2016 and nearly did again in 2020. Will pollsters underestimate Trump's strength again? And where did the key demographic groups wind up when averaging the polls?

For an answer to that question, we have to turn to the Cook Political Report and Dave Wasserman. Last night, Wasserman linked to their final aggregation of selected pollsters, which -- unlike RCP -- aggregates results in key demos. And the news there is also no es bueno for Team Kamala, although the topline aggregation gives her an under-1% lead in the national polls:

The national picture: Harris's lead in @CookPolitical's final polling average is 48.7%-47.8% (0.9 pts). Harris lead is back up to 80%-15% w/ Black voters, while Trump has gained slightly w/ men, white voters and 18-29 year olds in the final month. https://t.co/jmmbiSvYGu pic.twitter.com/AqvCfVwebz

— Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) November 5, 2024

Wasserman is one of the sharpest election observers in the media. When he says, "I've seen enough," he means it, and his calls almost never go wrong. If you want to follow a reliable observer on Twitter/X tonight, get on board right now.

In this case, though, Wasserman undersells how much the demos change the picture from four years ago, not just in this cycle. Trump has made some eye-popping gains that call into question how the toplines can be as close as they are:

• Black voters -- The Cook Report shows that those split in 2020 on a 90/9 basis favoring Joe Biden. Their final aggregate average has Harris leading, but only by 80/15, meaning that Trump has gained significantly while she's losing even more (likely to third-party candidates)
• 18-29 Year Olds -- Four years ago, Biden led 60/37 in this key Democrat voter group. Harris only leads in the aggregated data by thirteen points (54.4/41.5), a ten-point drop in the gap.
• Hispanic voters -- Biden also led this group 60/37 in 2020; Harris leads by 53.6/41.5, again a ten-point drop in the gap
• Gender gap -- Cook doesn't have historical data from polling in 2020, but the 2020 exits gave Biden a clear win. Trump led among men by 8 (53/45), while Biden won women by 15 points (57/42) for an eight-point advantage overall. This time Trump wins men by almost eleven points, 53.7/43.0. while Harris wins women by just over 11 points, 54.1/42.5. The gender gap is a single point, albeit in Harris' favor.

The aggregate data paints a much rosier picture for Trump, assuming that the polls are accurate -- and the aggregation is supposed to adjust for outliers. 

ff that doesn't put a little pep in Team Trump's step, then the last iteration of Atlas Intel surveys should do it. The reputedly most accurate pollster in 2020 has Trump ahead in all seven battleground states as well as in the national popular vote:

Final @atlas_intel Swing States Poll:

NEVADA
Trump 50% (+3)
Harris 47%
.
MICHIGAN
Trump 50% (+2)
Harris 48%
.
PENNSYLVANIA
Trump 50% (+1)
Harris 49%
.
WISCONSIN
Trump 50% (+1)
Harris 49%
.
NORTH CAROLINA
Trump 50% (+2)
Harris 48%
.
GEORGIA
Trump 50% (+2)
Harris 48%
.
ARIZONA… https://t.co/eLDLgnbTKZ pic.twitter.com/MsB2rejBf8

— Political Polls (@Politics_Polls) November 5, 2024

None of these are commanding leads, except for Arizona, where Atlas Intel predicts that Kari Lake will beat Ruben Gallego, 48.4/47.8. Georgia becomes a literal tie when the full-ballot question is asked, but Trump gets 23% of the black vote there too, and 25% when asked as a two-person election. In Michigan, Trump gets 42% of the black vote. Nevertheless, Elissa Slotkin still edges out Mike Rogers for the Senate seat there. 

This is just the data we have, of course. Do with it what you will, but if this is the data at the end, well ... I'd much rather be Trump this morning than Harris.