Vice President Kamala Harris hasn’t just caught up to Donald Trump—she’s actually taking some small leads.
According to an NPR analysis of FiveThirtyEight aggregated polling data published Monday, the Democratic presidential nominee has increased her advantage in battleground states. Several states that were previously reported to vote “likely Republican” in the upcoming election—including Nevada, North Carolina, Georgia, and Arizona—are now all considered toss-ups. Other states that were assured to vote Republican, such as Florida, now seem slightly less enthused by the Republican ticket.
Two states that served as tipping points in the 2016 election, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, have transitioned from “toss-up” status to likely Democratic supporters. Harris holds an average lead of about three points in Wisconsin, as well as Michigan, while she has just a one-point lead in Pennsylvania.
Of course, now is not the time to assume that Harris has the election in the bag. The Democrat’s leads are mostly within the poll’s margin of error, and besides that, pre-election polling in the last two cycles has failed to capture the quiet zeitgeist in favor of Trump. As such, Democratic pollsters have warned voters not to get too cozy ahead of November.
“Our numbers are much less rosy than what you’re seeing in the public,” president of pro-Harris super PAC Future Forward Chauncey McLean, who rarely talks publicly, told Reuters last week.
Margie Omero, a partner at the Democratic polling firm GBAO Strategies, expressed a similar sentiment to Politico. “It’s still a very tough race, and that feels consistent with everything we know,” Omero said.
Still, former Trump administration officials were quick to celebrate the shifting tide. On Friday, former Trump Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham shared a Trump tweet bragging that a Rasmussen poll had placed him five percentage points ahead of Harris.
“Rasmussen was the only poll he asked about/we told him about because it was always in his favor,” Grisham posted with a laugh emoji. “There could have been 35 polls saying he was losing & all he cared about was Rasmussen. We used it as a way to keep him happy. #TheEmperorHasNoClothes”
Source Agencies
