In a bid to lower expectations and energise Democrats, US Vice-President Kamala Harris’s campaign team described itself as the “clear underdogs” in a note on Sunday and said the 2024 White House race will be decided by “razor-thin” margins in the battleground states as in 2020.

The note, by Harris campaign chair Chair Jen O’Malley Dillon, acknowledged former President Donald Trump, who is the Republican nominee for the White House, remained a “formidable candidate” and said he has a “motivated base of support, with more support and higher favorability than he has had at any point since 2020”.

“Make no mistake,” Dillon wrote, “We head into the final stretch of this race as the clear underdogs.”

Harris leads Trump 48 per cent to 46.2 per cent in the average of national polls computed by RealClearPolitics, and 47.1 per cent to 43.8 per cent in the weighted average of national polls compiled by FiveThirtyEight. But the difference is slim, and within the margin of error and the campaign is cautioning Democrats against complacency. The race is tight in the battleground states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.

“In 2020, the election came down to about 40,000 votes across the battleground states,” Dillon wrote.

“This November, we anticipate margins to be similarly razor-thin.”

The Harris campaign has been trying to open up states dominated by Republicans such as North Carolina and Georgia, where the Vice President had earlier called herself the underdog in this race. Dillon described the road ahead as “very hard”.

Among other things, she acknowledged Harris and her running mate Tim Walz, the Governor of Minnesota remain relatively unknown.

“While Donald Trump is a heavily defined candidate, voters do not know Vice President Harris or Governor Walz as well,” she wrote, adding: “While we continue to ramp up our organizing and paid efforts, over this final stretch, an aggressive campaigning schedule to introduce and define our ticket to the voters that will decide this election will be critical.”

The road ahead includes the September 10 presidential debate between Harris and Trump. The last Democrat to face Trump in a debate was President Joe Biden and it did not end well for him. His dismal performance triggered calls for him to drop out of the race and make way for someone else. He pulled out and endorsed his Vice President to take over the Democratic ticket. In the build-up to the debate, the two sides have squabbled publicly on some details — the Harris campaign has asked for the microphones to be kept alive for both candidates at all times, and the Trump campaign has it should be muted after the candidate’s time to respond to a question is over.

“The next 65 days will be very hard,” Dillon wrote. “This race will remain incredibly close, and the voters who will decide this election will require an extraordinary amount of work to win over.”