In what may be the most heated presidential contest since 2000, political observers have grown frustrated with the glacial nature of polling trends. Big developments like that debate don’t change things much, nor do the unprecedented influx of paid ads, or Donald Trump’s increasingly violent rhetoric. There’s a tendency to exaggerate trends that can be seen largely through a microscope, giving us headlines like this one from The Hill: “Momentum shifts against Harris in presidential race.” Now to start, “momentum” is a questionable term because it suggests a tendency to have a self-propelling force, whether that’s true or not. But a close examination of the polls shows that the Harris-Trump race remains in the balance, even if distinct trends can be discerned from the data.

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Using FiveThirtyEight’s polling averages, the national race is somewhat closer than it once was. Kamala Harris leads by 2.0 percent, less than half a point from her lead a week ago and 0.7 percent less than two weeks ago . On the other hand, her vote total was 48.3 percent, close to her all-time high of 48.6 percent on October 6. For what it’s worth, Nate Silver’s average showed Harris leading by 2.3 percent; The New York Times put her up two points. In battleground states, the big trend is that the race across the map is narrowing, with Trump leading in Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina and Harris leading in Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — but both candidates Candidates have attack distance everywhere. Still, Trump is making small but measurable progress.