Just before Labor Day, often treated as the quasi-official kick-off of the presidential election season proper, I wanted to share some notes on the state of the race — what the polls say, what they mean and whatever other scraps of information I’ve been able to pick up and glean.

Overall, I see a race that remains close, uncertain, but in which Kamala Harris holds a small but general advantage.

Let’s start with the shift from mid-summer and Harris’ entry into the campaign. When Biden left the race he was three or four points behind Trump in the national polls and was behind in all the swing states. This represented a small but critical drop from where he was in June before the debate. (Much of that drop was in the week prior to leaving the race.) Over the course of August, Harris moved from that starting point into a three- or four-point lead in national polls. So a shift of seven or eight points in Democrats’ direction, where she more or less remains. At the state level, Harris is now ahead or roughly tied in all the swing states. North Carolina, meanwhile, is now firmly in the swing state group, where it really hadn’t been under Biden.

Wes Moore, Governor of Maryland, is one of the Democrats’ big, rising stars. And yesterday the Times delivered an ominous headline about a Bronze Star “he claimed but never received.” The subhed of the article reads: “For years, the Maryland governor has faced questions about whether he had wrongfully said he had a Bronze Star. He insisted no. But an old document proves otherwise.”

Sounds bad, as they say. The feature photo shows Moore looking toward the sky with a mix of contrition and shame. So the article tells us that Moore has long “faced questions” and now the Times has finally found the document that proves Moore’s wrongdoing. That document turns out to be his application for a White House fellowship in 2006 where he said he had received the Bronze Star and combat action badge. But there’s no record of him ever receiving the Bronze Star. Moore spoke to the Times and said it was an honest mistake which he regretted. According to Moore his superior officer told him to include it because he was already submitting the paperwork for the award. “He thought that I earned it and he was already going through the paperwork to process it.”

You have to get all the way down to paragraph fourteen, as TPM reader AG helpfully pointed out to me, until you get this.

A new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast is live! This week, Kate and Josh talk about North Carolina’s rating change, Trump’s campaign brawling with an Arlington Cemetery employee and the upcoming Harris-Walz interview.

You can listen to the new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast here.

Very good points from TPM Reader RS …

I respect the cemetery employee’s unfortunately-at-this-point-entirely-reasonable decision not to “press charges” in light of the potential for retaliation.  But let’s not sugarcoat it: assaulting a federal employee in the performance of her duties is a felony (18 USC 111), full stop.