Why neck-and-neck polls ahead of Election Day could actually be good news for Donald Trump
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https://www.foxnews.com/video/6363848399112
Almost every major poll has the 2024 presidential race as a toss-up with just over a week until Election Day — and that appears to be good news for former President Donald Trump’s chances of returning to the White House.
There are three major reasons:
- Trump has obliterated Harris’ polling lead.
- National polls have never shown him so close ahead of Election Day.
- He’s polling ahead by the slimmest margins in every swing state.
Of course, dead-heat polling suggests that the election could still go either way. But these factors point to Trump regaining momentum as Americans turn out in record numbers for early voting, fill out their mail-in ballots and prepare to line up at the polls on Election Day.
5The Trump-Vance campaign has grown increasingly optimistic about its chances of victory. Getty Images
Even in the polls where Trump is lagging behind Vice President Kamala Harris, there appears to be a clear trend of him gaining steam in the election homestretch while Harris’ numbers are falling.Head-to-head, Harris slightly currently edges Trump out 50% to 49% among likely voters. They split evenly in battleground states at 50% apiece, according to a Sunday CBS News/YouGov poll, which had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.6 percentage points.
But critically, that marks a 1-point gain for Trump in the battleground states from two weeks ago, or an erosion of Harris’ advantage over Trump.
Harris led by up to 4 percentage points in national polls after the candidates’ only debate Sept. 10.
At the start of October, Harris had a two-point edge over Trump in the RealClearPolitics aggregate of multi-candidate national polling. Now Trump is in the lead with 0.1 percentage points — well within the margin of error.
The mere fact that Trump is leading even in the aggregate of national polling is remarkable given that Republicans haven’t won the popular vote in two decades.
Among the most highly regarded surveys, the New York Times/Siena College poll found Trump dispatching Harris 47% to 46% among likely voters.
Battleground states swing toward Trump
Of course the popular vote won’t put either Harris on Trump in the Oval Office — it’s the seven major battleground states that will.
And here, too, Trump has the slimmest advantage.
Presently, Trump is up on RCP’s map of the Electoral College — which makes a call based on the most accurate polling on every battleground state. Right now, he’s on track to win the Electoral College 312 to 226. For context, he won by 304 to Clinton’s 227 in 2016. Biden won 306 to Trump’s 232.
Trump is ahead in RCP’s aggregate of of polls in all seven battleground states — although barely in some cases. In Pennsylvania, he is up 0.6, Wisconsin 0.2, Michigan 0.2, Arizona 1.5, Nevada 0.7, Georgia 2.2 and North Carolina 0.8.