'Huge shift' for Harris in these 4 pivotal swing states 'not great news' for Trump: analysis

17 August 2024

While President Joe Biden had all but written off winning any of the Sun Belt states in 2024, Vice President Kamala Harris' path to 270 electoral votes is much more diverse. Now, a new poll is showing Harris competing with Trump in the four major battleground states.

According to the latest New York Times/Siena College poll (rated by political forecaster FiveThirtyEight as the #1 most reliable poll), Harris is now within the margin of error of former President Donald Trump in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina. Harris leads Trump by five points in Arizona, and by two in North Carolina, which Republicans have won in every election dating back to 1980 (with the exception of 2008).

Trump narrowly leads Harris by one point in Nevada, which will award six electoral votes to the 2024 victor. And Trump is so far favored to win Georgia's 16 electoral votes, as he has a four-point lead on Harris in the Peach State. Biden struggled in the New York Times/Siena College poll, with the last national survey prior to him exiting the race showing the president down by six points among likely voters. Trump's lead stretched to nine points among registered voters.

In his analysis of the poll, the Times' Nate Cohn reminded readers that while each individual state's poll is "relatively inexact and subject to lots of uncertainty," the overall big picture "represents a huge shift from earlier in the cycle." He noted that when Trump was making inroads with key Democratic constituencies, like young voters, Black voters and Hispanic voters, the rapid shift of momentum in Harris' favor is "not great news for Mr. Trump."

"Ms. Harris has an 84-11 lead among Black voters in Georgia and North Carolina, the two battleground states where Black voters represent their largest share of the electorate," Cohn wrote. "No one would have batted an eye at a result like this a year or two ago, but it’s a significant improvement from Mr. Biden’s 74-17 lead in May in Georgia and his 74-18 lead across our final five national polls of his campaign."

Cohn elaborated that the vice president "has taken the clear lead among young and Hispanic voters as well," with that bloc showing a 54-40 advantage for Harris in Arizona and Nevada, compared to Biden’s far more narrow 47-43 lead he had in a May survey. He added that young voters between the ages of 18 and 29 are strongly preferring Harris by a 55-39 margin across all four Sun Belt states.

The Sun Belt states have a combined 49 Electoral College votes between them and could very well decide the November election. Biden won three of them — Arizona, Georgia and Nevada — in 2020 by roughly 0.4% in each state, but trailed Trump in those respective states prior to exiting the 2024 race on July 21. Now, Harris' advantage is roughly equal to the 0.4% edge Biden had in 2020, with still roughly three months to go before Election Day.

The presidential race appears to have shifted energy to down-ballot races as well. MSNBC producer Kyle Griffin noted that the poll showed a 49-40 advantages for Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nevada) over her Republican opponent. Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Arizona) is comfortably ahead of failed 2022 gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake by a 51-42 margin, and North Carolina Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein leads Republican Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson by a 49-39 margin.

Aside from the Sun Belt, another region that could prove decisive is the so-called Blue Wall, which includes the states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Those three states have a combined 44 Electoral College votes between them, and the winner of those three states has gone on to win the presidential election in both 2016 and 2020.

Last week, a New York Times/Siena College poll of those three states found Harris narrowly leading Trump. The vice president had a narrow 50-46 edge over Trump in a direct head-to-head matchup across all three states. When third party and independent candidates like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. were lumped in, Harris remained ahead but by slightly smaller margins.

Click here to read Cohn's full analysis in the Times (subscription required).

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