Tipsheet

Nail-biter: New Polling Deluge Depicts an Extremely Close Presidential Race

Guy Benson
Guy Benson  |  September 20, 2024 10:05 AM

An avalanche of new polling data, nearly all of it taken after last week's presidential debate, has arrived over the last two days.  Some of the numbers clearly favor Kamala Harris, others favor Trump, but the overall upshot is that with about a month-and-a-half to go until election day, this contest is excruciatingly close.  Two major national surveys portray a tied or virtually tied race.  The latest from Fox News contains somewhat good news for the Harris campaign, as she leads Trump nationally by two points, which represents a small post-debate swing in her direction.  That lead is driven by a new (+12) advantage among independent voters, who have swung 20 points toward Harris since Fox's August survey.  I'll offer some contradictory data on that front below, but here are the top lines:


In better news for the Trump campaign, the same poll shows the Republican narrowly leading -- in aggregate -- across the seven battleground states, as well as in key swing counties:

When looking at results only among counties where the 2020 presidential vote was close (Biden and Trump within 10 points), Trump is ahead 50%-48% — and he holds the same edge across the combined battleground states (Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin). "Our best estimates are that if Trump is within 2 points of Harris nationally then he will likely win in the Electoral College," says Republican pollster Daron Shaw, who conducts Fox News surveys with Democrat Chris Anderson. "These data showing a Trump edge in the key counties and battleground states suggest that’s probably right."

The other major national poll we should discuss comes from the New York Times and Siena College, which produced an exact tie:


Unlike the Fox survey, in which Trump was down double-digits among Indies, Trump slightly leads Harris within that key subgroup in the Times poll.  I'll remind you of the fresh Gallup numbers we covered yesterday, which showed Harris' favorability tanking among independents, and in much worse shape (-25) than Trump's (-9) within that group.  This additional statistic, in which independents were pushed one way or another, also suggests Trump and the GOP may be in better shape among independents than some of the less favorable polling might indicate.  Gallup's numbers have bounced around a bit on this metric, but here's the latest snapshot:


As for specific battleground state data (Fox's 50-48 edge for Trump was spread across seven states), Emerson's latest poll dump paints a picture of an exceptionally tight, margin-of-error race:

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The most "comfortable" margins here are Trump by three in Georgia (we highlighted another poll showing that same spread just yersteday) and Harris up two in Michigan. Every other state is either exactly tied (Nevada), or measures a one-point lead for either Trump (Arizona, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania) or Harris (North Carolina).  These are effectively polling rounding errors.  They're virtual ties.  If Republicans are nervous about Emerson giving Harris a tiny lead in North Carolina, especially with their mess at the gubernatorial level in that state), they might console themselves with multiple other surveys showing Trump a bit ahead in the Tar Heel State. Ditto for Democrats across some of the other states where Emerson finds a Trump advantage, whereas other polling gives Harris the lead.  Over a flurry of new Wisconsin polls, all of them resulted in a one-point race -- which is especially notable, given how badly Wisconsin polling has missed Trump's support over the last two cycles.  

Then there's absolutely critical Pennsylvania.  Two fresh polls have Harris leading by three or four points, including the New York Times' data.  For what it's worth, I find it basically impossible to square two separate NYT surveys showing the national race tied, but with Harris up four in maybe the most closely-divided swing state in the country.  The Emerson poll above has Trump up one there.  And two additional polls (did I mention there has been tons of new data dumped into the system over the last day or so?) have the Keystone State exactly tied:


Just very, very close.  I'll leave you with this thought -- Democrats have to feel pretty good about their ballot operations and ground game coming through for them in very competitive races, as it's unclear if Republicans have improved at all in this key realm.  On the other hand, small or even modest polling leads cannot feel too reassuring for Democrats, due to this effect:


In mid-October of 2016, Clinton was up seven points in the RCP national average.  In mid-October of 2020, Biden was up ten.  Their eventual margins fell well short of those numbers, of course, and the rest was history. Will that pattern play out again this year?