Democrats are increasingly concerned that pollsters are underestimating Donald Trump’s approval rating and rating his chances of winning the November presidential election much higher than major polling numbers suggest.
Most national polls show Democratic candidate Kamala Harris with a moderate but consistent lead, but some supporters are worried about her slim leads in three northern battleground states – Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin – that are considered must-wins for her shot at the White House.
In Pennsylvania (generally considered the most important battleground state), some polls show the vice president holding a 4-6 point lead, while others have Trump trailing by smaller margins. The gap has narrowed in Michigan and Wisconsin, with Harris leading by just 1-2 percentage points in some recent polls.
Underlying Democrats’ concerns is the realization that Trump, who narrowly won three states on his way to defeating Hillary Clinton in 2016, then fared much better than expected in all three states in 2020 when he lost to Joe Biden by a much smaller margin than expected.
The concerns are compounded by a new New York Times/Siena poll that showed Trump’s approval ratings in three key Sun Belt battleground states – Georgia, Arizona and North Carolina – hitting their strongest in weeks.
The poll finds that the Republican candidate has a 5-point (50-45%) lead in Arizona, where Biden won by just over 10,000 votes in 2020, and a 4-point (49-45%) lead in Georgia, where the president won by a similar margin. In North Carolina, where the state is trying to avoid tarnishing after revelations about past comments made by Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson, Trump has a smaller lead, 49-47%.
Putting Democrats’ fears into reality is the prediction that if Trump beats polling projections and wins by the same margin he lost the 2020 election, he will win all seven designated battleground states (the seventh being Nevada).
A separate projection from Focal Data, which uses a model that takes into account various demographic factors in determining the likelihood that certain groups will vote, would reduce Harris’ lead by an average of 2.4 percentage points across battleground states.
“The November election could be decided by as few as 60,000 voters, which could mean the difference between a correct and incorrect prediction about the election’s winner,” wrote Patrick Flynn of FocalData. “Pollsters who rely solely on self-reporting could once again be subject to polling errors in Trump’s favor.”
The only encouraging news for Harris is that even if the polls are wrong, as they were during the 2022 midterm campaign, she is likely to win every battleground state except Georgia.
But some Democrats are unconvinced, pointing out that both Clinton and Biden have performed better against Trump in polls both nationally and in battleground states than incumbent Harris.
“It’s ominous. There’s no question it’s concerning, but no matter what, you’re all working as hard as you can,” the paper quoted an anonymous Democratic senator as saying. “My sense is there’s not much we can do beyond what we’re already doing.”
Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania told the site that Trump is a threat despite Harris’ recent strong showing in his state. “The polling has really, really deteriorated since 2016…. Trump is going to be a formidable presence in Pennsylvania. That’s absolutely true,” he said.
In a more worrying sign for Harris, a New York Times/Siena poll showed that her “rebound” following this month’s debate with Trump – which most polls showed her winning – was the smallest of any candidate to win a presidential debate in the 21st century.
“34 polls measuring the race before and after the debate have, on average, given Kamala Harris an edge of about 1 point,” wrote Nate Cohn, chief polling analyst at The New York Times, concluding that the race remains deadlocked despite the debate.
“George W. Bush, John Kerry, Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and, earlier this year, Donald J. Trump all recorded approval ratings increases of at least two points after a debate.”