Former President Donald Trump’s battleground state advantage appears to have evaporated in the little more than a week since Vice President Kamala Harris became the presumptive Democratic nominee, a new poll showed.
On average, she notched a 48% to 47% lead in battleground states – jumping ahead in four out of seven of the key contests, according to a Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll.
Harris led the polls in Arizona with 49% support to Trump’s 47%; Michigan with 53% to 42%; Nevada with 47% to 45%; and Wisconsin with 49% to 47%.
Prior to Biden’s abrupt exit, Trump, 78, had generally been leading in most of the battleground state polling, with some variation.
Trump still carried the lead in North Carolina (48% to Harris’ 46%) and Pennsylvania (50% to Harris’ 46%) in the Tuesday poll. The two candidates tied in Georgia with 47% each.
The poll is among the earliest comprehensive surveys of the battleground states since President Biden’s seismic July 21 decision to withdraw from the race and endorse Harris, 59.
Earlier this month, another Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll gauged Biden, 81, behind Trump at 45% to 47% – a two-point spread that also represented Biden’s strongest performance in the battleground states after his disastrous debate performance.
At the time, that poll pegged Trump up in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina and Pennsylvania, but behind Biden in Michigan and Wisconsin.
Other polls generally showed Biden losing ground at the time in the wake of his debate performance, which triggered a mutiny among Democrats that ultimately culminated with his decision to drop out.
Still, most of the battleground states in the most recent poll are within the margin of error, suggesting an even race.
The survey sampled 4,973 registered voters from July 24-28 across the seven main battleground states. It held a general margin of error of plus or minus 1 percentage point for the main chunk of swing states.
The margin of error came in at 3 points for Arizona, Georgia and Pennsylvania; 4 points in Michigan, North Carolina, and Wisconsin; and 5 points in Nevada.
The Trump campaign’s top pollster Tony Fabrizio previously warned that Harris would enjoy a “honeymoon phase” in polling over the early days of her abrupt ascension.
“That means we will start to see public polling — particularly national public polls — where Harris is gaining on or even leading President Trump,” he explained in a memo last week.
“While the public polls may change in the short run and she may consolidate a bit more of the Democrat base, Harris can’t change who she is or what she’s done. Stay tuned…” he added.
The recently rebranded Harris for President campaign has boasted about the apparent jump in momentum, hauling in some $200 million within her first week as the de facto top-of-the-ticket.
Trump and his campaign have begun recalibrating their messaging to go after Harris more aggressively and sew concerns in the minds of voters about her past flirtation with hard-left policies.
Bloomberg News/Morning Consult’s Tuesday poll also found that a third of voters across the seven battleground states indicated that they are more likely to cast ballots in the election due to the Democrats’ switcharoo.
That includes 44% and 49% of Hispanic and black voters, respectively. Previously, Biden appeared to struggle to ignite enthusiasm from those blocs of voters.
In a silver lining for Trump, voters in the survey ranked the economy as their top issue – giving the 45th president an eight-point advantage over Harris. Still, that’s down from the 14-point edge Trump held over Biden.
Nationally, Trump is leading Harris by 2 percentage points in the RealClearPolitics aggregate of a five-way matchup.
Biden’s decision to withdraw at this stage of the race is unprecedented.
Harris is now racing to select her running mate ahead of the Democrats’ planned virtual roll call to crown their nominee early next month.