With Harris winning in the polls, a look at how the electoral map has changed

Amy Walter:

Well, I think the most important thing to talk about is what's happened in the three weeks since Kamala Harris entered this contest.

If you think about where we were before, think of the Republicans as a football team and they had every member of their team on the field. And the Democrats were a football team where maybe 70 percent of their members were on the field.

Now, what's happened with Harris, the enthusiasm, the energy, the traits that you showed from where he's campaigning in these battleground states means that both teams now have everybody on the field, which means that this is a battle of inches, not yards. Both are aligned. They're evenly matched teams, where anything from a side-winning takeover to a candidate getting a raise at the end can be anything.

But I do think, look, the battle right now, it was in your piece that you introduced the show with. It's the battle to define the Harris/Walz ticket. They are not particularly well known. Even the vice president is not that well known. The only benefit she's getting is that I think a lot of people assumed, because she was the vice president, she would come with the same baggage that Biden had.

Instead, we saw his favorable numbers change 10 points, more favorably than before. She was much more tied to Biden's views than she is today. This is the good news for her.

But as you can see, the Republicans are trying to fill in those gaps themselves, calling her dangerously liberal. They have ads going after her, specifically on things like the border, but also police reform and her views on some of those issues where she moved to the left in some cases during the 2020 campaign.

So I think for the next, let's call it, more so after, the DNC is where he has the opportunity to tell his story. After that, it's still Republicans trying to make the case for how they'd like voters to see her.