The Anatomy of a Swing State – Harris vs. Trump – September 4th
Bottom Line: We’re now under 9 weeks away from Election Day, with the first vote-by-mail ballots to be sent out from the swing state of North Carolina on Friday, meaning that the Election Season is now upon us. The next likely catalyst in this race is the ABC News debate next Tuesday. Enough time has now passed since the DNC and RFK Jr’s exit from the presidential race to better gauge what the potential impact of each of those events appears to be.
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.
- Election Day 2020: Biden +7.2%
- September 3rd, 2024: Harris +1.8%
Momentum had squarely been on the side of Kamala Harris since she entered the race. However, that may no longer be the case. It was a point I spoke to a week ago as Kamala Harris didn’t appear to have received a bump from the DNC which historically had led to a 2-point push in the polls. With another week’s worth of polling results that have poured in we see that the impact of the DNC has was only a 0.3% boost in the polls for Harris nationally. As I mentioned last week it’s possible Harris has reached a ceiling for support and/or her momentum was stalled by RFK Jr.’s exit from the race and endorsement of Donald Trump.
What we currently see is an 5.4% shift to the advantage of Donald Trump over Election Day 2020. Without another known positive catalyst on the horizon for Harris, Donald Trump is sitting in a significantly stronger position today than when he narrowly lost the election four years ago, and also when he narrowly won the election eight years ago. A 5-point plus swing in the electorate over four years ago 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 and Kamala Harris won by 5.4% or less in 2020:
- Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin
Those are currently the key swing states to watch as of this week. 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.
Since Harris’ assent to the top-of-the ticket Maine, Minnesota and New Hampshire, New Mexico and Virginia have moved from potential swing state status back into likely states for Democrats prior to this week’s changes. With each of those changes the path to victory expands for Kamala Harris as it narrows for Donald Trump.
As of today, the RealClear average of state polls shows...
- Harris retaining: Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin
- Trump flipping: Arizona, Georgia
- Tied: Nevada
There are two significant changes this week. The first is that Nevada, was had been in the Trump column until this week, is now shown as a tie. The much bigger move is that Pennsylvania, which may be the most pivotal swing state of this cycle, flipped to Harris this week. That’s the first lead Harris has held over Trump in PA. These changes also have resulted in another first.
Trump had maintained an Electoral College advantage over Harris as she’d previously advanced in the polls. That’s no longer the case. As of today, the split has Harris positioned to win by the narrowest of margins – 270 to 262 (with Nevada’s 6 votes unallocated).
Now here’s where it gets especially interesting. If you account for how the polls performed in each of these states in the prior two presidential elections here’s what we see:
- Trump has performed in line with what the polls have suggested would happen in Arizona.
- Trump has underperformed his polling in Georgia and Nevada
- Trump has outperformed his polling in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin
If the polls perform similarly this cycle compared to how they’ve performed the prior two cycles Harris would carry Nevada and Georgia based on current polling, however Trump would carry Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Adjusted for the margin of error in the polls previously, Trump is shown with a 290-248 vote advantage currently.
What this illustrates is that the race is tight as of today with an election that could swing from the narrowest of victories for Kamala Harris, if the polls are generally accurate this cycle, to a narrow but slightly more comfortable win for Trump if the polls perform similarly to their averages over the prior two cycles.