Since the primary, one side of the equation about the 2024 race hasn’t changed. Put aside the slight advantage due to electoral college… Trump is a candidate with a very high floor and a very low ceiling. He is likely to end up at around 45-47% of the vote regardless his opponent unless something transformational happens. The assassination attempt had the potential to be such a thing, but it hasn’t really turned out that way. Because of that Trump would have a very difficult time beating a generic Dem candidate or anyone that can do well with independents. He had a much better chance against Biden because the combo of age concerns and Biden’s objectively awful record over last 3.5 years has made voters want a change so he was unlikely to do much better than that same 45-47% range. Harris has worked very hard since Biden dropped out to essentially be a generic Dem and make the race about Trump instead of the Biden-Harris record. That has given her a chance to get that extra 2-3% that Biden could not. Trump hasn’t done much to change that framing yet because he also prefers talking about himself. The race remains close because of that dynamic and it will come down to whether Trump can hurt Harris or she will hurt herself with that 2-3% of voters to the point where they abstain or not. Of course this doesn’t account for the possibility that Trump loses the popular vote but happens to pull off just the right number of votes in the right states, but that’s generally how this race was always going to be determined.
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