With just two weeks until Election Day, Vice President Kamala Harris continues to hold a narrow lead over former President Donald Trump.

According to FiveThirtyEight's election dashboard, Harris is up by an average of 1.6 points in national polls as of Tuesday. The vice president also seems to be more popular with Americans. Virtually equal numbers of Americans have positive and negative views of Harris – 47.2 percent are negative versus 46.6 percent are positive.

By comparison, Trump's net popularity rating is negative: 52.2 percent of Americans have an unfavorable opinion of the Republican candidate.

As pollster Nate Silver wrote in a post on his Silver Bulletin blog on Tuesday, “If this election were a popularity contest, Kamala Harris would win.”

But Silver argued in his essay that Harris' favor with voters may not be enough to win on Nov. 5. Many election forecasts, including Silver's, predict that Trump will win the minimum 270 Electoral College votes, although the margin is extremely small. According to Silver's forecast Tuesday, Trump had a 53.1 percent chance of winning a second term, while Harris had a 46.6 percent chance.

Historically, positive evaluations of a candidate did not result in electoral success. As Silver pointed out, when Trump defeated then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2016, the Democratic nominee had a net dislike rating of 12.6 points. For comparison: Trump's unfavorable rating was 21 points. Trump lost the majority of votes in his first presidential bid, but beat Clinton in the Electoral College by 306 votes to 232.

Silver wrote Tuesday that Harris and the Democrats ran a campaign largely on “sentiment,” while Trump stuck to his normal rhetoric.

“Your message is: I'm a likeable person, not Trump, and you just have to trust me to sort out the details,” the pollster wrote. “He says, I'm an asshole fighting for you, and here's a lot of stuff you'll get if you vote for me.”

Silver said Harris' message was likely fueled in part by President Joe Biden's dislike ratings. The vice president has “a difficult game” because he is both the Democratic candidate and part of the current administration, he said.

“Harris also has some advantages,” Silver continued. “Trump is unpopular. And she has managed to change her once bad public image. But she is finding it harder to distance herself from her previous policy positions and the problems of the Biden-Harris administration.”

“Perhaps betting on sentiment was the best choice – but the choice is a bad one, and she'd better hope the medal comes out heads,” Silver wrote.

Newsweek Harris' campaign emailed Tuesday seeking comment.

Harris has been repeatedly pressed to take a clearer stance on how her administration would differ from Biden's. Her campaign has pushed the message that her ticket represents a “new path forward,” although she has shied away from offering specific criticism of the current administration.

In an appearance on Fox News Tuesday morning, Karl Rove, a former chief of staff to President George W. Bush, said that Harris “needs to focus on what's best for her and not worry about acknowledging (Biden's) feelings.” injure.”

“The candidate has to find a way to say, 'I am my own person, and yes, there are things I would do differently, and let me tell you about the things I will do in the future'.” ” said Rove. “She has to be the candidate for change because if she stays more of the same, she will be defeated.”