Even after a stretch of positive media coverage, a widely praised Democratic National Convention, and a debate performance in which she dominated former president Donald Trump, Harris has continued to cast her campaign as a long shot.

Why the hand-wringing, when Harris is polling far better than President Joe Biden was before he dropped out of the race?

Some pundits have stacked it up to a savvy get-out-the-vote strategy. But the race really is that close: especially in decisive swing states, the Harris campaign is, in many ways, the underdog. And considering the far larger size of Biden’s 2020 lead — and how narrow his win turned out to be — Democrats have every reason to worry.