The Anatomy of a Swing State – Harris vs. Trump – July 24th

By Brian Mudd

The Anatomy of a Swing State – Harris vs. Trump – July 24th          

Bottom Line: What a couple of weeks it's been in the presidential race. A week ago, as we were in the heart of the Republican National Convention the biggest questions as we looked ahead to what the next week would hold included what, if any, impact the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump might have in the presidential race. What the impact of JD Vance as Trump’s running mate would be, if any, and whether there would be an overall bump from the RNC’s festivities. Those questions are all still relevant but of course President Biden’s decision to exit the presidential race with Vice President Kamala Harris’ immediate success gaining the necessary support to become the presumptive nominee, that’s become the biggest story. What it’s also done is flip the dynamics of this Anatomy of a Swing State series.  

There will be no presidential rematch after all, making some of the dynamics I’d studied for this series irrelevant. Still, there are numerous dynamics that can immediately be accounted for due to Trump’s status as a former president, and Harris’ high-profile status as the current vice president. Additionally, due to the regular speculation that Biden would exit the race we’ve had regular head-to-head polling in a Harris vs. Trump presidential match. So, Let’s get to it.  

We’ll start with an overview of where Trump stands today in polling against Harris compared to where he stood on Election Day 2020 against Biden using the RealClear Politics polling average nationally.                  

So, in effect the name of the top of the Democrat’s ticket has changed but the dynamics in this race haven’t significantly changed. Trump’s lead over Harris at the onset of this contest is about 1% lower than it was against Biden when he exited the race. 

What we currently see is a 8.8% to 10.5% shift to the advantage of Donald Trump over Election Day 2020. This type of swing in the electorate would clearly have a profound impact on the election outcome if it were to be held by Election Day.  

These are the states that Joe Biden won by 10.5% or less in 2020:                  

  • Arizona, Georgia, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Virginia          

Those are currently the key swing states to watch in this cycle. The expectation would be that Trump would be able to retain the states he won four years ago with the question being whether he’d be able to flip enough swing states back his way to win the election. There’s one change this week with Harris at the top of the ticket. New Mexico, which had appeared to be in play for Trump last week, doesn’t appear to be based on data today. 

As of today, the RealClear average of state polls shows...                  

  • Harris retaining: Maine, Minnesota, Virginia         
  • Trump flipping: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, New Hampshire, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin                  

More important than what’s happening nationally is what’s happening within specific states. In this first edition of the series between Harris and Trump we have our first change in eleven weeks – and it’s favorable for Trump. Harris has performed worse than Biden in New Hampshire to this point and the result is that Trump is now showing his largest advantage yet in this cycle as he’s shown with a 316 to 222 vote advantage in the Electoral College. No doubt a lot will change between today and Election Day in November, however the former and perhaps future President of the United States is currently the best positioned to win. 

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