If you currently are not in a coma, you probably have heard that the 2024 presidential race is a squeaker. Polls in the swing states are tight, and the fight for the House of Representatives is equally close.

If you think that I am foolish enough to “call” the presidential race, think again.

When veteran professionals say the presidential contest is a toss-up, I certainly won’t contradict them. But there are reasons why Vice President Kamala Harris might beat former President Donald Trump, and we should not avoid considering them.

Harris’ closing speech in Washington, D.C. , was terrific. Filled with talk of cooperation with Republicans and the need to return this country back to normalcy, Harris came off as “presidential” and capable.

Harris invited Republicans to work with her, and she promised to include a Republican in her Cabinet.

Unlike Harris’ closing remarks, Trump’s have been par for his course: Nasty, mean-spirited, threatening and filled with warnings about how he will get even with anyone who opposes his agenda and style.

Comments in an Atlantic magazine article, in Bob Woodward’s recent book and elsewhere confirming Trump’s contempt for military heroes and his “fascist” approach to governing can only hurt the former president. The recent Trump rally in Madison Square Garden is likely to have repulsed swing voters and the undecided.

Harris’ comment that Trump will go to the White House with an “enemies list” while she will enter the Oval Office with a “to do list” points out the clear differences between the two candidates.

While President Joe Biden stepped on Harris’ final comments and on a “joke” from a Trump-allied comedian that Puerto Rico is “a floating island of garbage,” the nasty talk about Puerto Rico should be a significant plus for Harris overall.

Forget Trump’s denial that he didn’t know the comedian Tony Hinchcliffe and had nothing to do with the “joke.” He has denied knowing people repeatedly — whether David Duke, Stormy Daniels or E. Jean Carroll.

Harris will lose some voters who backed Biden in 2020 but are unhappy about the economy. But many, most or possibly all of those switchers are offset by Republican voters who can no longer stomach Trump’s character.

I’ve talked with several activists who related anecdotes of Republicans who simply can’t — and won’t — vote again for Trump.

Harris’s strength with women voters also raises questions about Trump’s appeal to them.

Women seem to be turning out in strong numbers in early voting, and if the electorate is disproportionately Democratic, as some observers expect, they will put Trump in a political hole. This would be particularly true for younger women.

The Democrats’ “blue wall” of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania gives them a path to the White House, especially if Georgia and North Carolina end up in Harris’ column. Arizona now looks like a more difficult lift for Democrats than it once did.

Late-deciding voters usually either don’t vote or they vote against the incumbent. After all, if a sitting president hasn’t sealed the deal with undecided voters by now, he or she never will.

But in this case, things are a bit different. Harris is the sitting vice president and has been her party’s de facto nominee for president only since late July, when Biden dropped out of the contest. Voters didn’t know much about Harris then, so she has had to introduce herself to them.

Just as important, Trump is widely regarded as a vulgar and derisive bully who has little respect for honesty, empathy and kindness. That makes it more likely that late deciders will break toward Harris, not Trump.

Normally, Harris’ skill as a speaker, her move toward the middle on a handful of issues and Trump’s lunacy would be enough to get her to 270 electoral votes. But Trump’s repeated lies and his undermining of crucial institutions that protect democracy are enough to scramble the political landscape.

Harris needs a strong showing from women, voters of color, younger voters and swing suburbanites who are turned off by Trump’s rhetoric and by his threat to our political system. If that happens, the vice president stands a very good chance of winning.

But if enough Democrats stay home or defect to Trump, the close race could turn into a Trump victory.

As we approach this knife’s edge election, a handful of people in a handful of states will decide who will govern this country. Let’s hope they make the right choice.