Top presidential pollster Nate Silver, formerly of 538, recently updated his election model. That updated model shows a huge change in the popularity of both candidates, with Kamala’s formerly somewhat large lead falling like a rock while the former president picks up support at an equivalently quick rate.
According to Silver’s polling, Vice President and 2024 Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris had just a minuscule lead of 50.1%, compared to former Trump has 49.7%. In both cases, the change was a quite large, for presidential polling, 4.8%, with Kamala losing that much support and Trump gaining it.
Silver, commenting on the change on his website, noted that the battleground state shifts are massive, making it an essentially 50/50 race. He said, “The forecast is really close. After another day of polls showing an essentially tied race in the Midwestern battlegrounds, it’s now literally 50/50.”
Continuing, Mr. Silver noted that the big leads Harris formerly had in battleground states have disappeared, saying, “We’re just not seeing as many Harris +3 type numbers in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania as we did immediately after the debate. It hasn’t been a huge swing, but even a half point to a point makes a difference.”
The change is quite large in the swing states, as Newsweek reported, noting that Harris has seen falling support in Nevada: “Harris currently leads by between 0.7 and 0.8 points, according to both pollsters, surveys have shown Harris leading by between 1 and 4 points, while Trump’s lead has been between 1 and 6 points in the last two weeks,” Newsweek reported. That’s a major fall from her former lead of close to two points in Silver’s tracker. Then, in another sunbelt state, Arizona, Trump has taken the lead, which is true of Georgia and North Carolina as well.
Speaking to CNN anchor Kate Bolduan, CNN data analyst Harry Enten noted that this is a huge sea change for Trump, who in both of the very close past elections was down dramatically in the polls. “Joe Biden was more popular than Trump, much more, and he barely won, and Hillary Clinton was more popular than Donald Trump and lost. Being more popular than Trump isn’t enough,” Enten said,
Enten went on to note that Trump is far more popular in this election cycle than in past ones, saying, “If you believe he has somehow become less popular over time, let me change your mind about that. In fact, he is more popular at this point in the campaign than he was at this point in the 2020 campaign or the 2016 campaign.”
"*" indicates required fields
Continuing, Enten said, “Kamala Harris is more popular than Donald Trump, but Kamala Harris had her popularity rising once she became the presumptive Democratic nominee.” He further noted, “I think there’s this real question in Kamala Harris’s mind, in the campaign’s mind: why is Trump more popular now than he was at this point in 2020 and 2016? And I think that is why you’re seeing the sharpening of attacks because they want to put him back down to here.”
Watch Enten speak about the matter here: