Trump and Harris are now in a virtual tie, with Trump at 46.5% support and Harris at 46.2% support, according to a Washington Post average of national polls. In July, Trump had 46.8% support while Biden had 45.2% support, according to the Post’s polling average.
As of Sunday, Trump still led in five of the seven battlegrounds, according to the Post’s polling average.
Trump leads Harris by five points in Georgia and Arizona, four points in North Carolina and Nevada and two points in Michigan, the Post’s averages estimate. Trump and Harris are tied in Pennsylvania, while Harris has a slight edge in Wisconsin. Harris is performing about one percentage point better in those states than Biden was before he dropped out.
Harris’s running-mate selection, which she plans to announce by Tuesday, could reshuffle the race yet again. Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro and Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona are among the finalists Harris was scheduled to interview today.
She plans to visit all seven battleground states this week to introduce her vice-presidential pick.
Harris is doing better than Biden was with black voters, which could help bring Georgia back into play for Democrats, polling suggests. Trump held a rally at an arena in Atlanta on Saturday, less than a week after Harris spoke at the same venue. But she may not be able to replicate Biden’s appeal with white, non-college voters, which could impact her chances in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
Democrats are “seeing tremendous enthusiasm for Vice President Harris and her vision in the states, whether it’s brand new supporters showing up at field offices in Nevada and Pennsylvania to knock doors or the 1000 Georgia voters who signed up to volunteer after her rally in Atlanta,” Josh Marcus-Blank, states communications director for Harris, said in an emailed statement.
Strategists from both parties see Pennsylvania as a near must-win state for both Trump and Harris. Pennsylvania is also the state where Republicans and Democrats are investing the most in TV ad spending. Democrats are spending more than US$56 million ($94m) on television ads in the state between July 21 and the November election, according to the firm AdImpact. Republicans are spending US$61m.
After Pennsylvania, Democrats have spent the most on presidential television ads in Michigan, followed by Georgia, Wisconsin, Arizona, North Carolina and Nevada. For Republicans, television ad spending after Pennsylvania was highest in Georgia, followed by Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, North Carolina and Nevada.
“If I were in their shoes, I wouldn’t be banking on anything outside of the blue wall saving me,” said Scott Jennings, a Republican strategist, of the Harris campaign. “If you’re banking on Arizona, and Georgia and North Carolina saving you from losing the blue wall, that’s not a bet I’d want to make … The pivotal state remains Pennsylvania. If you win it, you’ve got a chance.”
Many Republicans say Harris is enjoying a honeymoon period, with the rollout of her candidacy, her upcoming vice-presidential announcement and the Democratic National Convention weeks away. New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu predicted that in his state, Harris’s poll numbers would hit a “high-water mark around mid-to-late August” and said that “if she doesn’t have enough of a buffer they’re going to come back down”.
Trump “has been gaining ground and leading in battleground and blue states,” Karoline Leavitt, a Trump campaign spokeswoman, said in a statement. “As more voters understand how weak, failed and dangerously liberal Kamala Harris is, President Trump’s chances in these battleground states and traditionally Democrat strongholds will only get better,” she added.
Still, Democrats see Harris as more competitive than Biden in the Sun Belt states of Nevada, Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina.
“She has appeal to some constituencies within the party that were lagging with Biden,” including younger voters and black and Hispanic voters, said David Axelrod, a former senior adviser to President Barack Obama. “That puts into play some of those Sun Belt states that have seemed out of reach. They’re still a stretch but they’re not nearly the stretch they were”.
Axelrod added that while there’s more energy and optimism for Democrats, “everybody should be sober that given the map, it is still a difficult race.”
At Trump’s rally in Atlanta on Sunday, several Trump voters said they saw Harris as a more formidable opponent than Biden because of her age. But they expected Trump to prevail in Georgia.
Kirk Barnett said Harris was “probably” a tougher opponent. “She is coherent,” he said.
As November approaches, analysts caution the shape of the race remains uncertain.
In the course of a month, Biden had a debate that changed the direction of the presidential race, Trump was nearly assassinated and Harris replaced Biden at the top of the ticket, Walter noted.
“All those things happened and it’s not like the polls flipped,” she said.
