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A month ago, the 2024 United States presidential election was former president Donald Trump‘s to lose – with the GOP nominee poised for a potential electoral landslide. Now, the race is at best a toss-up – with Democrat Kamala Harris enjoying a surge of momentum since being installed as her party’s presidential nominee.
Say what you will about the manner in which Democrats ousted duly elected incumbent Joe Biden (we’ve called it what it was from the beginning)… but the efficacy of the ouster is not in question.
As early data yields to more concrete conclusions, the top takeaway is unavoidable: Trump’s lead is gone.
Obviously, there are legitimate questions about some of the latest polling showing Harris leading Trump by four percentage points (or more) in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. In fact, even Democrats – including top strategist David Alexrod – have called the numbers underpinning the latest swing state polling from The New York Times/ Siena College “improbable,” arguing “you’re probably looking at basically tied races.”
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Still, Alexrod’s bottom line is the same as ours… that the new data represents a “big shift” from the anemic numbers Biden was putting up against Trump.
“For now, at least, Harris has become (the) ‘turn the page’ candidate – a chance for a new beginning, running against a de facto incumbent with epic scars and vulnerabilities, who so far isn’t handling her challenge well,” he wrote. “Hell of a turnaround from a month ago.”
Contrasting the findings of the Times/Siena poll, Robert Cahaly of The Trafalgar Group has a Pennsylvania survey out showing Trump drawing 45.9 percent support compared to Harris’ 44.4 percent – a +1.5 percent edge for the former president (just outside of the poll’s margin of error). Independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was polling at 3.8 percent in the Trafalgar survey, while 4.8 percent of likely voters in the Keystone State said they were undecided.
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New @trafalgar_group PA General Election #poll (8/6-8) #papol
— Robert C. Cahaly (@RobertCahaly) August 10, 2024
45.9% @realDonaldTrump
44.4% @KamalaHarris
3.8% @RobertKennedyJr
1.1% Others
4.8% Und
Report: https://t.co/Pd2LmDCItm pic.twitter.com/T6ziw98MZI
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Trafalgar polling also showed Trump clinging to a narrow lead in Arizona (+1.2 percent) – a state where he was trouncing Biden last month – and retaining a comfortable lead in Nevada (+3.4 percent).
Cahaly’s Trafalgar Group, incidentally, was one of the only firms in America to correctly predict Trump’s upset in 2016. Also, while Biden won Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin by narrow margins in 2020 – it is important to remember Trump outperformed the polls in that election, too.
Nonetheless, oddsmakers like Harris to win the election by a growing spread. As of Monday morning, her presidential bid was trading at 59 cents on PredictIt – while Trump was at 43 cents. Just two weeks ago, Trump’s bid was trading at 69 cents following the failed attempt on his life in Butler, Pennsylvania.
For those of you unfamiliar with this exchange, PredictIt’s values signify a “yes” price on the individual in question winning a majority of Electoral College votes following the 2024 election. Those values are part of the exchange’s “double auction” method of selling shares related to the outcome of world events.
To read more about how PredictIt’s model works, click here.
Keep it tuned to this outlet as we continue to parse the numbers in these critical battleground states ahead of the November 5, 2024 election, now just 84 days away.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR …
Will Folks is the owner and founding editor of FITSNews. Prior to founding his own news outlet, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina, bass guitarist in an alternative rock band and bouncer at a Columbia, S.C. dive bar. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and eight children.
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17 comments
Mush brain DonOLD sounds like one of deranged followers at this point, yelling that Kamala’s crowds are fake and AI generated. When asked what he will do the working class, he literally said “drill, baby, drill!”. That’s just in a day. Trump is a multiple time felon facing even more trials. His running mate is a national joke who can’t shake the silly claim that he had sex with a couch. Every time he’s interviewed he says something stupid and get clowned for it.
Trump/Vance are running on a platform of the downright horrendous Project 2025, taking more rights away and christofascist authoritarianism. Not exactly stuff that’s popular with American voters.
Not sure how running a mentally challenged, elderly criminal and his annoying little buddy is a path to victory, but a lot can happen in the next couple of months.
Good grief, RIP GQP Troll. Schedule an appointment with your psychiatrist NOW. Or perhaps you just need a special needs playground.
Way to dispute my facts.
I know you Trumptards are going through some things lately. I guess being stuck with the mentally declining, elderly felon, Trump, and his flip-flopping, futon fornicating VP pick is taking its toll on the MAGA goons.
It’s only going to get worse for you all…
You think Trump acts normal, says rational things and has the mental ability to run the country?
Either you can’t be honest with yourself or you’re a gullible idiot. No in between.
I think Time Magazine said it best. “Perhaps above all, she has given Americans the one thing they overwhelmingly told pollsters they wanted: a credible alternative to the two unpopular old men who have held the job for the past eight long years.”
While we must wait and see about the Electoral College, the American people have always been 100% clear. They do not want Donald Trump as their President. He lost the election by large margins in 2016, 2020 and he will do so in 2024. The minority can’t always get their way despite Trump’s cries of foul to the contrary.
As Kamala becomes increasingly more popular Trump becomes increasingly more unhinged. Republicans are begging him to stick to policy, but he has no self control and is obsessed with crowd size and calling her “Kamabla” whatever that is supposed to mean. At this rate he will be in a straitjacket by November.
MAGA
Maggots!
Yes
#ManyAreGettingArrested
Should be an easy choice for voters:
A fat old man with dementia, who also happens to be a rapist, fraudster and all around crook with a total cringe goofball VP pick.
Or
An intelligent, former prosecutor, AG and Senator. Who fights for our rights while taking down the bad guys (Trump’s type) and her salt of the earth, witty ex-congressman, high school teacher and successful football coach VP pick.
Easy, right “conservatives”?
I absolutely love to see all you LEFTIES go full throttle unhinged. HILARIOUS!!!
Whatever you say, all caps.
I don’t think it’s hilarious. It’s very sad that they have been so brainwashed. God loves the crazy liberals and so do I. I pray their eyes open.
“It’s very sad that they have been so brainwashed.”
In cults, they convince the victims that become their members that everyone outside the cult are the ones who have been brainwashed.
All I can tell you is, I know Biden and Harris are flawed. I don’t give them money, go to their rallies, buy their shirts, wear their hats, ruin my car with their bumper stickers on every surface possible, fly their flags with swear words on them from my house, car, boat, lawnmower, etc. If they lost I’d say they lost, just like Hillary did. I certainly wouldn’t storm a building in DC because I was hella butthurt or defend anyone who did do that. I don’t jump on a political bandwagon for how I decide my own healthcare, I talk to my actual doctor.
You can call all of that virtue signaling. I call it what I would expect from any sane, rational, well-adjusted adult.
Also, I don’t think all Trumpers are brainwashed. Some people just need a leader, a cause, an excuse to be crappy towards other human beings. That wouldn’t be on some nefarious group of bastards victimizing you. That would just be on you.
MAGA
Trump/Vance 2024 gets my vote.
Will, if you keep making total sense like this, I might just have to subscribe again.