Harris leading Trump by 2 points in battleground states: Poll
Vice President Harris is leading former President Trump by an average of 2 points across seven battleground states as the White House race remains tight, according to polling released Thursday.
A Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll found Harris has a 2-point average edge over Trump when it comes to registered voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. She is ahead by 1 point, within the poll’s margin of error, when it is restricted to likely voters in these states.
The lead was strongest in Wisconsin, where she edged out Trump by 8 points among registered voters, followed by Nevada and Pennsylvania, where she led by 4 points in each, pollsters said. The two were deadlocked in Arizona with 48 percent each, while Harris led by 2 points in Georgia and North Carolina each, and in Michigan by 3 points.
Harris’s lead in North Carolina is especially notable, as pollsters point out no Democratic presidential candidate has won there since former President Obama in 2008. The gains Harris has seen in the Tar Heel State prompted the nonpartisan group Cook Political Report to shift the state’s presidential race from “lean Republican” to “toss up.”
Since replacing President Biden atop the Democratic presidential ticket last month, Harris has narrowed the gap with Trump, posing a risk to the former president’s healthy lead over Biden when he was still in the race.
The Thursday poll follows a Fox News survey that found Harris similarly making gains in the Sun Belt states of Arizona, Georgia and Nevada. The Trump campaign later ripped Fox News over the polling.
The former president has largely dismissed the notion that Harris has crept up in the polls.
The poll also suggested the selection of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) as Harris’s running mate had a more positive impact on increasing swing-state voters for the Democratic ticket, compared to the selection of Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) and its effect on the Republican ticket.
About 30 percent of swing-state voters said Harris’s vice president selection of Walz made them more likely to vote for her, while only 23 percent said the same about Vance last month after Trump tapped him as his running mate, per pollsters.
The Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll was conducted among 4,962 registered voters in seven swing states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The statistical margin of error is plus or minus 1 percentage point across the seven states; 3 percentage points in Arizona, Georgia and Pennsylvania; 4 percentage points in Michigan, North Carolina, and Wisconsin, and 5 percentage points in Nevada, pollsters said.
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