Heading into election week, a Democratic strategist described the party’s mood as “sickening optimism” that Vice President Kamala Harris will prevail as polls show a frighteningly close race against Donald Trump.

A campaign full of twists and turns will reach its climax on election day. Harris and Trump are in a dead heat in the seven battleground states scattered across the northern Great Lakes region and the Sun Belt that will likely decide the outcome.

Here are five keys to Harris’ bid to make history and become the first woman, the first black woman and the first Indian-American to become president.

Stand your ground with Black and Latino voters

One of the nagging questions for Democrats in this election is whether they can maintain overwhelming support among black voters and prevent a further decline in Latino support. In 2020, Joe Biden had 92% of Black voters and 59% of Latinos.

Harris can’t afford to do much with these groups, which are full of low-propensity voters who need encouragement to get involved. But sticking with it in the 2024 election is easier said than done.

Polls show that a significant portion of Black and Latino voters are Trump-curious this year, with the potential to deliver significant gains for his party.

Here are five keys to a Trump victory

But will this curiosity translate into actual votes for Trump at the ballot box? Or can Harris pull her back into the Democratic fold in the long run? And will the group that ultimately doesn’t vote be disproportionately conservative Trump supporters or liberal Harris supporters? The answers play a big role in Harris’ hopes of winning. She faces the crucial task of winning over her share of nonwhite supporters, including Democratic-leaning Asian Americans.

Abortion brings women to the ballot box

All signs point to a growing gender gap, with women leaning more toward Democrats and men — including nonwhite men who have voted blue in the past — leaning more toward Republicans. The election could result in one of the largest gender divides in modern history and could depend on which side has the strongest vote.

Harris has focused on abortion and reproductive autonomy to appeal to female voters. He capitalized on Trump’s success in ending Roe v. Wade and the possibility that Congress and the President could either enshrine Roe into law or ban abortion nationwide. Harris recently appeared on the popular podcast “Call Her Daddy” to mobilize less politically active women.

Meanwhile, Trump has stepped up his courting of men, including young Gen Z men who are disillusioned with Democrats. He appeared on Joe Rogan’s popular podcast, praising the cryptocurrency and befriending Barstool Sports’ Dave Portnoy and billionaire Elon Musk – a strategy Harvard University Youth Survey Director John Della Volpe calls “brother whispering.”

Will young men defect and run for Trump? If that’s the case, Harris will need to increase his score with the women to defeat him. Early voting shows that women are voting in greater numbers, but there is no guarantee that this will remain the case until Election Day.

Increase Democratic support in the suburbs

Harris is working to expand her margins in the suburbs by courting soft Republicans, center-right independents and moderates turned off by Trump. She is campaigning with former Republican Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, who have condemned Trump as an authoritarian, citing, among other things, his calls to use state power against political rivals and his quest to stay in power after losing the 2020 election to stay.

Well-educated and disproportionately white suburban voters have been a bright spot for Harris this cycle, especially since Trump made no significant effort to retain the fifth of voters who cast ballots for Nikki Haley in the 2024 Republican primary. They could give Harris a decisive boost, since these voters tend to reliably vote in one election after another.

Trump is expected to dominate the rural and less educated parts of the country. If he does better in the polls with this group, as he has in previous elections, Harris will have to increase her margin among white college graduates, who favored Biden by 15 percentage points in 2020.

Neutralize Trump on the economy and immigration

A high priority for Harris going forward has been closing the “confidence gap” that Trump enjoys among voters in handling the economy, with the cost of living seen as a top issue for voters in swing states.

Her team believes it will take an indecisive fight on the issue to prevail and appeal to voters on who cares more about them. By putting cost-cutting at the center of her agenda, Harris has gained significant ground compared to Biden before he dropped out in July.

Will it be enough? Some polls show it has all but neutralized the problem. The question is whether that extends to the electorate that chooses it. If so, Harris would have covered her biggest vulnerability with swing voters.

In addition, Trump relied heavily on migration fears during the election campaign and blamed Harris for the chaos at the southern border. It’s a major vulnerability for the vice president, but is it politically fatal? Harris has responded by pivoting to the right and attacking Trump for scrapping a bipartisan border security package that would have made it harder to obtain asylum. She doesn’t have to win on this issue, but she does have to limit the damage.

Deliver a superior ground game

If the election is indeed close, Harris may need her “ground game” — the infamous mechanics of door-knocking, voter mobilization and using local presence to mobilize supporters — to produce the margins that make the difference.

There has been a lot of talk about Trump’s relatively lack of down-to-earth nature. Instead, the former reality TV star relied on his celebrity status to reach followers and outsourced other elements of the turnout campaign to Musk, his billionaire ally who has no experience with it.

In 2016, Trump won the presidency despite his shaky starting position. In 2020, some Democrats believe they underperformed because they all but abandoned their ground game due to Covid-19, ceding the playing field to Republicans when it comes to physically reaching voters. They corrected this in 2022. This year, Democrats are once again confident that their ground operation will be successful. Their theory is that the election could be 50-50 in Harris’ favor. Time will tell whether their theory is correct.