The Briefing, Vol. XII, Issue 36
This week:
- Trump is better situated now than he was at this point in 2020 or 2016
- Many swing states are now dead-even
- NE-Sen: Is Deb Fischer in trouble?
President 2024
Having officially arrived at the post-Labor Day campaign season, it is already evident that Democrats’ prospects are better now than they were when Joe Biden was still their candidate. That said, the Kamala Harris balloon is already slowly deflating after her joint CNN interview with vice presidential nominee Tim Walz — the question is, just how much will it come down?
Harris’s stratospheric surge in the polls represented a combination of the collective sigh of relief among Democrats after Biden’s exit, an almost euphoric campaign of media hype supporting her, and a political convention designed to propagandize on her behalf (which is what conventions are supposed to do, of course).
After the CNN interview, Harris World faces a couple of harsh realities: First, their candidate is a mid-wit unprepared for even the most obvious questions she should have expected. Her repeated mantra that “my values haven’t changed” doesn’t explain why all of her positions have. Also, although this remains an inside baseball story for now, her campaign is reportedly a chaotic and directionless mess that would probably already be doomed if not for the massive media assist she has been getting up to now.
The Electoral College picture: Harris holds a small nationwide lead, usually within the margin of error, in most but not all recent national polls. But it bears remembering that there is no national election for president. As things now stand in the key states, the race is essentially tied, with Trump leading but within the margin of error in most but not all recent polls of the key states.
Georgia and North Carolina, where Trump led decisively when Biden was still the Democrats’ candidate, are now too close to call — clear examples of the Democrats’ “Harris dividend.” In short, the race could hardly be more unsettled than it is now.
The Electoral College map looks much like it did early in the race between Biden and Donald Trump, before Trump started opening up a lead in most key swing states:
Historically, Trump outperforms his national polling. When Biden was the nominee, there was an expectation that this effect might be less pronounced in 2024 than in prior years, since Biden was winning by smaller margins in big Blue states. Some theorized that this might have been making Biden’s national numbers underrepresentative of his potential in key swing states.
Harris’s accession, however, has turned this theory on its head. The sudden surge of enthusiasm in big Blue states like California and New York may now be causing her national numbers to signify an overrating or overconfidence.
Although this is truly anyone’s race to win, a key piece of context favors Trump. Namely, on a national level, Trump is polling 1.8 percentage points behind Harris on average. In 2020, he trailed Biden in the RealClearPolitics polling average by 7.2 points as of Sept. 3, 2020. In 2016, he trailed Hillary Clinton by 3.9 points. So by the standard of past elections he won and came very close to winning, he is better situated this time than in either of his previous runs.
Now, a few notes about the presidential candidates’ outlook in key states:
Arizona: Here is a state where Trump leads or ties in all polls finished within the last week. He doesn’t lead by much, though.
Noble Insights, a local Republican pollster, has Trump ahead by three points and doing better now with his own support number (47 percent) than he ever did when Biden was the Democratic nominee, although his lead is clearly smaller.
Florida: In case you were wondering, the Sunshine State is still not really in play. The latest evidence is a poll of heavily Democratic Miami-Dade County, showing Trump and Harris tied at 47 percent each. Miami-Dade has not gone Republican in a presidential since 1988, when George H.W. Bush carried Florida by more than 20 points. The state will be much closer than that in 2024, yet Trump is competitive. That implies that good conservative governance can shift even a heavily urban county in a rightward direction.
After Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and Sen. Marco Rubio (R) both carried Miami-Dade in 2022 (along with the other three statewide Republican candidates for attorney general, agricultural commissioner, and state CFO), it was already clear that Florida is headed in a rightward direction. It had been drifting slowly rightward since 2000, but the trend appears to be accelerating.
Another data point reinforcing this is a left-wing environmentalist PAC poll showing Trump above 50 percent in the Sunshine State, which is unusual for Trump in any swing state.
Georgia: Trump probably needs to win Georgia, but at the moment all indications are that he is trailing. Harris just barely leads (within the margin of error) or ties him in every poll that has been completed within the last eight days. This is a sharp contrast with where the race was when Biden was still a candidate.
Nebraska-2: Although Trump leads by a wide margin statewide, multiple recent surveys show him trailing Harris in the Omaha-based Second Congressional District, either by five points or by eight points.
Nevada: The Silver State, where Trump had a decisive advantage over Biden, is now a dead-even race between Trump and Harris.
North Carolina: Trump’s lead in the Tar Heel State is down to just one point in three consecutive polls, all completed within the last eight days. The three polls before these had Harris slightly ahead.
This key state, which Trump had nearly salted away against Biden, will be critical in the race against Harris. Wins in North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and either Georgia or a combination of Arizona and Nevada would be enough to put him back in the White House.
Pennsylvania: The most important swing state of them all is actually a commonwealth — the Keystone State. Trump and Harris will be dueling over this one until the very end, without question.
Harris and allies have been advertising there aggressively, especially during baseball games, but they may be reaching a crowd with low propensity for voting Democrat. The polls are a mixed bag, showing a genuinely even race.
Virginia: Although she has managed to close the gap or pull ahead in some states since her accession, Virginia is not one of them. Harris’s lead in the latest Quantus poll, at less than three points and smaller than the four-point margin of error, is insubstantial enough that the state may still be in play for Trump under the right circumstances.
Wisconsin: Setting aside one weird outlier poll from Bloomberg that had Harris up 8 points in the Badger state, recent polls give Trump the slightest of edges — just one point ahead, well within the margin of error. The good news for Trump is that he remains competitive here at all, at the very height of the Kamala hype.
Senate 2024
Nebraska: Is Sen. Deb Fischer (R) in trouble? It’s beginning to look like it. Democrats chose not to field a candidate against her, instead backing independent Dan Osborn (I), who is running on a pro-union, pro-abortion, pro-marijuana, pro-gun-rights, right-to-repair platform. Osborn publicly rejected the party’s formal support, but he has to be getting a lot of Democrats’ votes to post the kind of numbers he’s getting in this race.
Although this one has largely stayed below the radar, multiple surveys, including one at the end of August by Split Ticket USA, have shown a surprisingly close race and shockingly low numbers (39 percent in this case to Osborn’s 38 percent) for the incumbent, even as appointed Sen. (and former Gov.) Pete Ricketts (R) is on track in the same survey to win easily over the Democrat in his parallel special election race.
Trump leads in this poll by 17 points, which is not dissimilar to his 19-point margin from 2020, so it seems unlikely that this is just a fluke. Fischer may be salvageable, but it may require a bailout from the national GOP that it can ill-afford to provide as it tries to maximize resources to build a new Senate majority.
