2 weeks Ago By [email protected] (kos)
Vice President Kamala Harris’ bounce after the Sept. 10 presidential debate is now clear, and she maintains her edge in many key battlegrounds with fewer than 45 days to go until Nov. 5.
A week ago, on Sept. 14, Harris held a 2.6-percentage-point lead on Donald Trump in 538’s national polling average.
She’s slightly stretched that to 2.8 points as of Friday at 2:30 PM ET, though some of the individual polling has looked downright gaudy , with leads of 4 to 7 percentage points dominating recently. Her worst poll of the past week came from Siena College for The New York Times, showing Harris even with Trump among likely voters.
But even one poll that had her up just 2 points—from Beacon Research and Shaw & Company Research for Fox News— showed a 3-point shift toward Harris from the previous poll, which was fielded before the debate. But as we all know, we don’t have a national election. So what’s going on in the states? x Embedded Content There has been less state polling than national, and that’s a good reason why there hasn’t been much of a shift since last week .
The biggest change is Harris’ best margin is now in Michigan, not Wisconsin. Currently, she maintains small leads in both of those states and Pennsylvania, is essentially tied with Trump in Nevada, North Carolina, and Arizona, and is about 1 point behind in Georgia. All of this is within the margin of turnout.
As we get closer to Election Day, I suggest you start looking less at the polling margin between the two candidates and more at their relative distance to 50%—that magical victory marker—in each state. In Michigan and Wisconsin, Harris is roughly 1.5 points from 50%, while Trump would have to somehow garner 3 to 4 points to get there.
Almost the same is true in Pennsylvania. Even in the states where Trump narrowly leads, he’s hovering around 47%. Who has the best chance to garner support to get to the majority? To be clear, no one has to get to 50% to win a state—it’s a multicandidate race, with minor parties, after all—but you have to get close.
In 2020 , President Joe Biden got 49.22% in Arizona, 49.47% in Georgia, 49.
45% in Wisconsin, 49.87% in Pennsylvania, and 50.55% in Michigan, while Trump got 49.
93% in North Carolina. In other words, the closer to 50% a candidate gets, the better the chances they have of winning the state—and Trump has a tougher slog getting there. x Embedded Content One place where his slog isn’t too onerous is Florida, where 538’s average has him at 49.
6%. And now it’s Harris who faces a tough challenge consolidating the remaining undecideds—and/or flipping some currently Trump-leaning voters—as well as turning out her base. Absent more compelling polling, this is the last week Florida will be included in this roundup.
So the question becomes: How does Trump, trapped in his endless cycle of boring grudges and grievances , build support when he’s stuck in the same 46-47% national-level range as he’s been in his past two elections? Remember, he got just 45.9% nationally in 2016 and 46.8% in 2020.
The inequitable Electoral College kept him in the game both times, and it’ll lend its assist this year as well. But even at the top of his game, when he had the benefits of incumbency and the White House bully pulpit, Trump couldn’t significantly break out of his limited band of support. He didn’t gain even a full percentage point between 2016 and 2020.
He’s certainly not going to do it now, as tired and addled as he has been lately. The only way Harris loses is if her supporters don’t turn out. In-person voting kicked off on Friday in Minnesota, South Dakota, and Virginia, so if you can, go cast your ballot! Because i f we vote, we win.
And if we vote big (looking at you, Swifties ), we’ll win big . Let’s go! You can help turn out the vote for the election by simply chatting to your neighbors. This is a cool one! Click here to sign up for Daily Kos/Indivisible’s Neighbor2Neighbor get-out-the-vote program.
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