Harris Escapes Tarnish of Biden Administration, Leads Trump in Five Swing States: Poll
Trump led in six of seven swing states last time the same poll was conducted.
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Vice President Harris is leading President Trump in five of the seven most competitive states, according to a new survey that also found Republicans have so far failed to tie Ms. Harris to negative perceptions of the current administration.
A new survey of 2,867 likely voters across seven swing states from the Cook Political Report Swing State Project, conducted by BSG and GS Strategy Group, found that Ms. Harris leads Trump in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona, Michigan, and North Carolina.
In both Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, Ms. Harris leads Trump 48 percent to 43 percent. In Arizona, she leads 46 percent to 42 percent, and in both North Carolina and Michigan she leads 46 percent to 44 percent in a multi-candidate field.
In Georgia, Ms. Harris and Trump are tied at 46 percent support and in Nevada, Trump leads Ms. Harris by 5 points. Across all the competitive states, Ms. Harris led Trump 48 percent to 47 percent. The survey’s margin of sampling error across the states was plus or minus 1.83 points.
The survey measured a significant shift in favor of the Democrats when compared to the survey’s results from when it was conducted in May. In the May survey, Trump led in every state except for Wisconsin, where he was tied with President Biden.
Driving Ms. Harris’s lead over Trump is her relative popularity with Democrats, Black women, independent men, independents over age 45, and suburban voters. Each of these groups saw a double-digit swing in favor of Ms. Harris when compared to their support for Mr. Biden in May.
The largest of these improvements came with Black women, where Ms. Harris saw a 30-point increase in her favorability when compared with Mr. Biden. The Democratic nominee also saw a 25-point improvement with independent men and a 24-point improvement with independents over 45 years old.
One key group currently breaking in favor of Ms. Harris is the so-called double haters, those voters who had a negative view of both Mr. Biden and Trump.
As it stands, the plurality of double haters plan to support Ms. Harris, 45 percent, while 16 percent say that they plan to support Trump.
Tied to Ms. Harris’s booming favorability numbers is that Republicans have so far failed to coalesce around a disciplined message against her.
“It’s remarkable that Harris escapes a significant amount (though certainly not all) of the economic pessimism surrounding the current administration, given that she’s a part of it,” a pollster, Lindsay Vermeyen, said. “And, even though many expect her to shoulder more of the burden around perceived immigration issues, she’s even escaped some of that thus far, too.”
So far, Ms. Harris’s biggest vulnerability is the perception that she is too liberal, with 53 percent of voters expressing that concern. For Trump, voters’ biggest concern is that Trump would be too focused on personal retribution in a second term, with 59 percent expressing this idea.
“In many ways, we saw that concerns about Biden’s age and mental acuity were preventing him from effectively leveraging issues that should work to Democrats’ advantage, like abortion and health care,” a pollster, Patrick Toomey, said.
“Now, we’re seeing how concerns about Trump’s erratic temperament and fixation on retribution are preventing him from converting relative strength on immigration, crime, the economy and foreign policy into making people feel safer with him in charge,” he added.