” frameborder=”0″ class=”dcr-ivsjvk”>
As next week’s crucial presidential debate approaches, Kamala Harris holds a slight lead over Donald Trump in head-to-head polls but faces tougher challenges in battleground states crucial to winning the US presidential election.
Since she entered the race, after Joe Biden’s dismal debate performance highlighted concerns about his age and intellectual ability, she has ridden a wave of support and enthusiasm that has turned the tide of the race, turning Trump’s solid but slim lead into Harris’ lead.
But as Harris heads into her first presidential debate, her popularity is showing signs of plateauing, while Trump will likely hope it will be a chance to restore momentum to his campaign.
But the race remains so close in battleground states, and Republicans have an advantage in the Electoral College, that one Politico commentator this week described the contest as “the equivalent of a knife fight in a phone booth.”
At the same time, with the first ballots to determine the next president in the White House due to be mailed to voters, the narrowing geographic focus of the election is starting to come into sharp focus.
” frameborder=”0″ class=”dcr-ivsjvk”>
North Carolina was scheduled to begin mailing out presidential ballots on Friday, but in a metaphor for the tense contest between Ms. Harris and Mr. Trump, a dispute over whether Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who had previously run as an independent, should have his name on the ballot delayed what should have been standard procedure.
Kennedy, who stopped campaigning on August 23 and endorsed Trump, is suing the North Carolina State Board of Elections for refusing to remove his name from the ballot in his state, where opinion polls show he is trailing closely.
A state Supreme Court justice ruled against Kennedy on Thursday but gave him 24 hours to appeal, temporarily delaying the mailing of ballots. Then on Friday, the state’s appeals court issued an order temporarily halting the distribution of mail-in ballots while it hears Kennedy’s appeal.
The postponement has added further tension to an already tense election campaign, according to a new analysis of recent polls by The Guardian.
Sixteen electoral votes are at stake in the state, which has been won by a Democratic presidential candidate only once since 1980, and Trump and Harris are neck and neck, with 48.07% of the vote.
The numbers show why Kennedy, who has concluded that Trump’s presence in the race is eroding his support and is trying to back Trump, is so keen to keep Trump’s name off the ballot.
If even a tiny fraction of voters cross out Kennedy’s name on their ballots, it could be enough to flip the only one of seven battleground states won by Trump, who lost to Joe Biden in 2020.
The turmoil in North Carolina is a microcosm of the reality of this (and increasingly) upcoming US presidential election: Voters turn out to polls in all 50 states, but under America’s unique system of the Electoral College, some states carry more weight than others.
Under this system, each state is assigned a set number of electors based on population — there are 539 for the nation — so a candidate would need 270 electoral votes to win.
While the outcome is foregone in many states (many Southern and Midwestern states are reliably Republican, while others, such as New York and California, are Democratic), the partisan distribution of those states in terms of electoral votes is roughly even, meaning that a lot will depend on a small number of states where partisan loyalties are evenly divided.
It also means that national poll numbers, while indicating overall trends, don’t necessarily determine the outcome of an election: The Guardian’s latest national polling tracker, a 10-day average, put Harris’s approval rating at 47.5% and Trump’s at 43.9%. While encouraging for Harris, if that result is replicated on Election Day, it probably won’t be enough to guarantee an Electoral College victory.
Even more important than North Carolina in this context is Pennsylvania, which, along with fellow battleground states Michigan and Wisconsin, is one of the Democrats’ designated “Blue Wall” states, sometimes referred to as the “Rust Belt” because of its location as the heart of the U.S. steel industry.
Biden won by just over 80,000 votes in 2020, receiving 19 electoral votes.
This time around, various combinations suggest that it could be key to the path that both Harris and Trump are charting to reach the magic 270 total.
That’s why the state has been a hub of activity for both campaigns in recent days. On Monday, Harris appeared with Biden at the Labor Day Parade in Pittsburgh in their first joint campaign appearance since replacing him as the Democratic front-runner, while Trump appeared at a televised town hall event hosted by Fox News and moderated by Sean Hannity on Wednesday.
This Tuesday, the candidates will meet in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania’s largest city, for the only scheduled presidential debate.
The data shows Harris holding a slim 1.7% lead in the state (48.9% to 47.2%), well within the margin of error. Other polls show the race is even closer, with a CNN poll this week showing both candidates tied at 47%.
The tough situation underscores why states like Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia and two “Sun Belt” states, Nevada and Arizona, are now receiving the bulk of campaign funding. The Trump campaign is shifting its focus away from other less-than-winnable areas and toward seven battleground states, with pro-Trump super PAC MAGA Inc. recently spending a reported $16 million on advertising in North Carolina.
In the battle for funding and advertising dollars, Harris may have the advantage: Her campaign raised $130 million in August, $361 million more than Trump’s, and a total of $615 million since she became the party’s nominee in July, according to figures released Friday.
It’s an eye-watering amount, but it will be enough to send a message across this vast country, but the alarm bells will ring loudest in states where the outcome remains uncertain even after the polls close.
© 2024 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliates. All rights reserved. (dcr)