Kamala Harris enjoyed a huge surge in support after Joe Biden was forced to withdraw from the presidential race. It didn’t feel like the race was over, but the timing wasn’t ideal for Trump’s campaign.
This has all changed since the release of new polls that show the former president gaining and even leading. Nate Silver, the election expert, rated the latest Times/Siena survey as the best in the nation. It showed Donald Trump ahead by one point against Harris. This is significant, given the Republican advantage of the electoral college.
But it’s not only the national polling that has tightened. CNN acknowledged that Harris’s state-level polling is showing some decline. Harry Enten, the network’s chief election analyst, warned that Harris was in danger of losing her entire election due to her inability to secure Pennsylvania.
CNN’s Harry Enten Sounds Alarm About Harris’ Vanishing Lead In ‘Very Pivotal’ Swing State pic.twitter.com/Nlk0Hztm7S
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) September 9, 2024
“I just want to look at Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania. What we see in Pennsylvania is a tightening of the race, okay?” Enten said to host John Berman, “This is the Harris versus Trump margin for the great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.” “A month back, you would have seen New York Times plus 4 Harris, Franklin & Marshall plus 3 Harris, and three Quinnipiac polls.”
Look at the polls from the past week. What do we see? We see that the race is much closer. In the CBS News YouGov survey, we see a draw. He continued, “We see a tie on the CNN/SSRS survey.” “This, to me is part of a developing pattern. It is in a pivotal state. What we saw was a slight Harris lead but within the margins of error, it is becoming a race which is too close to call, one that’s even.”
The RCP average is currently tied. Three of the seven recent polls were tied, while three showed Trump as leading. Only one had Harris in front. The latter would be the always-Democrat-friendly Morning Consult poll, which has been an outlier most of this cycle. This is a significant shift from the majority polls that showed Harris ahead in the weeks following her entry into the race.
How important is Pennsylvania? CNN’s John Berman posed the question, possibly looking for alternative ways to win if Harris lost the state. Enten didn’t play along, and he laid out two scenarios that showed Pennsylvania would likely be decisive. In this context, Harris’s decision to pass over Gov. The decision to replace Josh Shapiro with the person pictured below may be one of the worst campaign mistakes in modern history.
Not alpha male material here. pic.twitter.com/TkcOKhrNPP
— Burt Macklin (@BurtMaclin_FBI) September 9, 2024
The stakes for the debate on Tuesday are even higher. A major mistake made by either candidate can change the outcome. It’s unusual for this to happen in debates. But it is also rare to see a presidential race so close when data are available. Trump can deliver a major victory if he comes prepared with a plan to make Harris lose her self-confidence.