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As the campaigns of former president Donald Trump and sitting vice president Kamala Harris kick into overdrive during the final seven weeks of the 2024 election cycle, pollsters have released a number of new swing-state analyses.
Here’s where the race stands…
TRUMP GAINING GROUND IN SOUTHEAST
A New York Times/Sienna College poll released this morning (September 23, 2024) indicates Trump has gained an edge in multiple swing states. The poll was conducted a week after Trump and Harris met on the debate stage in Philadelphia.
In Georgia, which Trump narrowly lost to president Joe Biden in 2020, he has increased his lead from a 47/47 dead heat with Harris in the NYT’s mid-August polling, to a 49/45 lead.
In North Carolina, which Trump won in 2020, the former president also increased his standings. In August he was two points behind Harris, who commanded a 49/47 lead over Trump. In the latest data, the two have switched places, with Trump now leading Harris by two in the Tar Heel state.
The latest round of NYT polling was conducted before Trump backed N.C. gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson was accused in a CNN report of making litany of insensitive remarks on the pornographic website NudeAfrica.com.
Robinson (who is black) allegedly opined that “slavery is not bad.”
“Some people need to be slaves,” he wrote. “I wish they would bring it back. I would certainly buy a few.”
He also allegedly expressed an affinity for Adolf Hitler in 2012 writing that “I’d take Hitler over any of the sh** that’s in Washington right now!” declaring himself a “Black Nazi!”
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While CNN didn’t include the majority of Robinson’s alleged sexual remarks, they did republish a voyeuristic recountment of Robinson surreptitiously watching women shower through an air vent at a public gym.
The username and email of the Nude Africa user who created the (now deleted) posts matches with an alias used by Robinson on his Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and Disqus accounts. Robinson was encouraged by Republicans nationwide to drop out of the race, but announced his intention to continue despite the resignation of his top staffers.
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I am in the process of retaining aggressive legal counsel to investigate who did this and how; we will leave no stone unturned, and will use every legal means to hold CNN accountable for perpetrating these lies.
— Mark Robinson (@markrobinsonNC) September 23, 2024
I am not backing down, the future of North Carolina depends on it.… pic.twitter.com/Lb9xuvF5Au
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The presidential impact of this spectacle hasn’t yet been factored into any of the publicly available polling data, but those following the race will doubtlessly closely monitor North Carolina in the coming weeks as they try to gauge the potential impact.
The newest batch of NYT state-level data also boded well for Trump in Arizona, where he flipped his trailing 49/50 polling to a 45/50 lead over Harris. Recent data indicates Trump has the potential to win the Southwestern swing state of Nevada as well. The NYT’s early August data indicated is a toss-up.
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PENNSYLVANIA WITHIN MARGIN OF ERROR
Recent developments in the Pennsylvania haven not been positive for Trump. The aptly named Keystone state is of the utmost strategic importance to both campaigns – with both candidates’ most likely paths to victory flowing through the commonwealth.
Trump and Harris have been running neck-and-neck in Pennsylvania polls conducted since Harris took the Democrat party reins – with Trump maintaining a slight lead in aggregate metrics for the majority of that time period.
The aforementioned NYT post-debate polls have show Harris ahead by four percentage points. Notably, unlike in other recently released NYT state-level data, neither candidate’s position has changed since the organization’s October polling.
Despite recent gains in polls beyond the New York Times, Harris only commands a .07 point lead in the Real Clear Politics (RCP) Pennsylvania polling average, which compares dismally to Hillary Clinton‘s 5.6 point lead and Joe Biden’s 4.5 point lead in late September 2016 and 2020.
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BLUE WALL UNDER FIRE
Wisconsin, which was considered such a Democratic stronghold that Clinton didn’t even bother campaigning there prior to her historic 2016 loss, is currently within the margin of error in aggregate polling data. This bodes poorly for Harris, as Clinton held a 4.7 point lead before she lost the state, and Biden commanded a 6.4 point lead prior to winning by a razor thin margin.
The same calculus applies in Michigan, which Harris leads by 1.7 points in the latest RCP average.
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If pollsters’ failure in 2016 – and again in 2020 – to capture the full extent of Trump’s support is replicated in this election cycle, Trump will win (barring a seismic ballot harvesting operation and another convenient pipe burst during the counting of ballots).
NYT’s latest national survey of likely voters indicates that even without a pro-Harris polling bias, Trump stands a chance at winning the popular vote, as their post-debate national respondents equally favored the two candidates.
While Trump still trails in aggregate national polls, the fact that the popular vote is in play indicates just how favorable the number are for Trump, who was consistently farther behind his former Democrat rivals in national polls during the prior two races.
The 2020 election was ultimately decided by just 123,423 votes in Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
Harris’ underperformance of Biden’s poll numbers in those critical states suggests that she is far from securing her victory, despite enjoying narrow advantages in two of those states.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR …
(Via: Travis Bell)
Dylan Nolan is the director of special projects at FITSNews. He graduated from the Darla Moore school of business in 2021 with an accounting degree. Got a tip or story idea for Dylan? Email him here. You can also engage him socially @DNolan2000.
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5 comments
Winning a second debate against Kamala might do wonders for Donnie boy, but alas, he just doesn’t have it in him, ability-wise or courage-wise.
If Donnie decides to go suck eggs, JD knows how much they cost. Well, maybe not…
Wow! It really reeks of hopium in here.
Must be some good shit!
The reality is President Trump is leading by a much greater margin.
Delulu.
How sad that young people, who can read and understand how our system works, continue to buy into Trump’s stolen election BS. He even slipped up and admitted on two occasions, that he lost. All of his former advisors who have knowledge of the elections say he lost.
It just shows you how far down the rabbit hole Trump cult members are willing to go unless this is just a result of Russian money flowing into right-wing bloggers.
And before you go Russia, Russia, Russia. Yes, Russia interfered in our 2016 elections. Yes, Russia interfered in our 2020 elections; and yes, Russia is trying to interfere in our 2024 elections. All to support Trump. Because Trump is going to give Ukraine to Putin and lift the sanctions on the Russian economy.