Kamala Harris turns polls around in swing states — except these two

Polls show swing voters prefer Harris to Biden, but Trump holds on to Pennsylvania and North Carolina

Media Election News (Joel Bissell | MLive.com ©2022)

Fresh polls show that Kamala Harris has made gains on Biden’s top performance in all swing states — except Pennsylvania, Biden’s home state.

The latest slew of national polls also indicate that Harris is securing a lead over Donald Trump at this stage in the race.

Harris has led over Trump in four major polls taken over the past five days, though the race remains tight, with an average of 45.3 per cent to Trump’s 43.8 per cent.

This is an improvement on last week’s poll numbers, which were released immediately after Biden announced he would step down from the Democratic ticket. Those showed significant variation and a Trump lead.

In the YouGov/Economist poll, which surveyed 1430 registered voters nationally from July 27-30, Harris is leading by a margin of 2 per cent (46 per cent), up by +5 points from the same survey last week (41 per cent).

The underlying data shows that on a national level, Independents are more or less split on whether they will go for Trump or Harris.

The poll also reinforces a slight gender split, with half of women supporting Harris compared to 41 per cent of men, and half of men supporting Trump compared to 39 per cent of women.

Harris and Trump battle for the swing states

Six out of seven battleground states have seen Harris improving on Biden’s numbers, according to a set of polls by Morning Consult for Bloomberg.

The polls were carried out in seven states from July 24 to 28, with sample sizes ranging from 454 registered voters to 804 in each state.

In particular, Harris appears to have made huge jumps in Michigan and Arizona, gaining by +5 points and +4 points respectively over Biden’s last polling in early July.

Harris is now leading in Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, and Wisconsin, while Trump leads in North Carolina and Pennsylvania.

Harris has topped Biden’s peak polling in every state except Pennsylvania, where the incumbent president was born, according to Morning Consult’s monthly data since October 2023.

Harris currently has 46 per cent support in Pennsylvania to Trump’s 50 per cent, while Biden was also at 46 per cent in May and June.

Trump is expected to speak at a farm show in Pennsylvania today, revisiting the state where he was shot just weeks earlier.

In Michigan, Harris has a 11-point lead over Trump, at 53 per cent to 42 per cent. Biden was already leading by 5 points in the last Morning Consult poll on July 4.

Harris made the most substantial movements among Michigan’s young voters (defined as the under-34s), who were leaning toward Trump under a Biden candidacy but have now turned blue by a wide margin. She has also seen improved numbers among Michigan’s registered Independents, but lost some support among the state’s 35-44 age group.

It is worth noting that the margin of error for these Morning Consults polls are 3-5 points, and that these swing states do experience a lot of shifts in opinion. So where there are small leading margins, no positive polling can be taken for granted just yet, especially given the rapid rate of change in the past few weeks and potential for further disruption.