Mark Halperin is probably familiar to most of our readers. He was at ABC News and then moved over to MSNBC in 2010 where he became a regular analyst on Morning Joe and other shows. 

Looking over his Wikipedia page, Halperin was always a bit controversial at MSNBC, including the fact that he predicted it was possible Trump might win in 2016 (he was obviously right about that). But Halperin's career crumbled in 2017 when five women accused him of sexual harassment. That number climbed to more than a dozen by the next day but Halperin had already been let go by NBC. Halperin has since tried to resume his career, first at Substack and then at Newsmax as an analyst. This year he his own video platform called 2Way which he publishes on X and YouTube. 

Yesterday, Halperin published a story on his 2Way channel in which he made some dramatic claims about the battleground states. First, he claimed that his sources tell him Kamala Harris is unlikely to win in Georgia, North Carolina and Arizona. That's not exactly a shock at this point as most polls seem to show Trump up slightly in those states.

The big news is what he said next. If Harris loses those states, her only path to 270 is the blue wall. She must win Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. "It could be that Kamala Harris wins Pennsylvania but loses the White House because she loses Wisconsin," he said. He added, "My reporting is that she's in trouble in Wisconsin.

"This is based on three sources, two Republicans, one Democrat, all of whom know the state quite well, and all of whom told me today the same version of they would be somewhere between surprised and shocked if Kamala Harris won Wisconsin."

Here's the clip of his comments.

NEW: Mark Halperin says his sources in both parties say Kamala Harris is not doing well in Georgia, North Carolina and Arizona.

Halperin says one Democrat source and two Republican sources say they would be “somewhere between surprised and shocked” if Harris won Wisconsin.

“It… pic.twitter.com/uAyqwKDXNY

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) November 2, 2024

At the end he's talking about some polls from a Republican firm. I'm not sure but he may have been talking about these polls which were conducted by a GOP firm called OnMessage and published yesterday.

📊 Final Poll by @OnMessageInc (R)

ARIZONA
🟥 Trump: 50%
🟦 Harris: 47%
—
PENNSYLVANIA
🟥 Trump: 49%
🟦 Harris: 47%
—
WISCONSIN
🟥 Trump: 48%
🟦 Harris: 47%
—
MICHIGAN
🟦 Harris: 48%
🟥 Trump: 48%

#238 (1.1/3.0) | Likely voters https://t.co/COj2B3KkD9

— InteractivePolls (@IAPolls2022) November 1, 2024

As you can see this shows Trump up by one in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and tied in Michigan (plus leading a bit more comfortably in Arizona). So this is at least consistent with the idea that the blue wall states Harris needs to win are very close and she could be running slightly behind in any or all of them.

For comparison, the FiveThirtyEight average has Harris up by 0.9% in Wisconsin while RealClearPolling has Harris up by 0.2%. Obviously all of these results are well within the margin of error for the polling so all they really tell us is it's probably very close. 

But as Halperin says above, keep your eyes on Wisconsin. It could be the state that settles this election.