The Anatomy of a Swing State – Harris vs. Trump – August 7th
Bottom Line: As we’re now under three months away from Election Day we finally have a race that’s solidified. Kamala Harris is officially the Democrat’s nominee, she’s named her running mate Tim Walz, meaning that the DNC which begins in less than two weeks is now just for show. We now have two full weeks of swing state polling between Harris and Trump to gain a better understanding of what the new swing state landscape is as the dynamics of this race have fully come together.
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%
- August 6th, 2024: Harris (vs. Trump)+0.2%, Harris + 0.4% in a 5-way matchup
Momentum has squarely been on the side of Kamala Harris since she entered the race. This culminated in her first week with an average lead nationally. Yet, despite Harris’ recent gains against the former president, Trump is continuing to run well above where he was against Joe Biden four years ago or Hillary Clinton eight years ago.
What we currently see is an 6.8% - 7% 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 and Kamala Harris won by 7% or less in 2020:
- Arizona, Georgia, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin
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. Since Harris’ assent to the top-of-the ticket New Mexico and Virginia have moved from potential swing state status back into likely states for Democrats.
As of today, the RealClear average of state polls shows...
- Harris retaining: Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire
- Trump flipping: Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin
The big change this week is that Michigan, which has consistently been in the Trump column for months, has moved into Harris’ column this week. Trump is currently shown with a 297 to 241 vote advantage in the Electoral College which is his lowest advantage since the onset of this series this year. 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.