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Vice President Kamala Harris is ahead of former President Donald Trump in five out of seven battleground states, according to new polling averages in the Silver Bulletin.
Harris, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, hit the ground running after President Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 presidential race and endorsed her on July 21 following weeks of interparty fighting among Democrats on whether he should pass the torch to the next generation after his debate fiasco against Trump, now the GOP presidential nominee, in late June in Atlanta.
The vice president is currently leading Trump nationally by 2.4 percentage points (46.7 to 44.3 percent), according to the Silver Bulletin presidential model. However, this is down from a peak of 3.1, the Silver Bulletin reported on Friday.
Harris is also leading Trump in five swing states that could decide November's election.
In Pennsylvania, Harris is ahead of Trump by nearly two percentage points (46.6 to 44.7 percent), according to the Silver Bulletin. She is doing even better in Wisconsin with 47.3 percent of the vote compared to Trump's 44.1 percent. Harris also leads in Michigan by almost three percentage points (46 to 43.1 percent) and in Arizona, albeit with a slim margin of 45.2 to 44 percent. Nevada is also a tight race in which Harris is ahead of Trump (45 to 44.3 percent).
Meanwhile, Trump leads Harris in the swing states of Georgia and North Carolina. The former president is ahead by less than one percentage point in Georgia (46.3 to 45.4 percent) and in North Carolina (46.3 to 45.5 percent).
Newsweek has reached out to Harris' and Trump's campaigns via email for comment on Saturday morning.
The Silver Bulletin is named after Nate Silver, who is considered to be one of the leading polling analysts in the United States. Silver founded ABC News' poll aggregator FiveThirtyEight, but he is no longer affiliated with ABC News or FiveThirtyEight. Eli McKown-Dawson, an incoming post-grad student at The London School of Economics studying social statistics and survey methods, works with Silver as an assistant elections analyst.
The polling averages in Silver's presidential model adjust for which type of voters are surveyed, whether independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is present, and house effects, which are systematic tendencies for polling firms to favor one party's candidate over another. Additionally, more reliable polls are weighed more heavily in the Silver Bulletin polling averages.
When looking at FiveThirtyEight's polling averages, Trump is ahead in Nevada by a slim margin and, overall, he is doing slightly better in the swing states that Harris is winning and slightly worse in the battleground states that he is leading in.
Harris has 46 percent of the vote in Pennsylvania compared to Trump's 44.7 percent, according to FiveThirtyEight. In Wisconsin, Harris is up with 47 percent of the vote while Trump has 44.1 percent. Harris leads Trump by 2.5 percentage points in Michigan (45.9 to 43.3 percent), and in Arizona, the vice president has 45 percent of the vote while the former president has 44.3 percent.
Meanwhile, Trump is winning Nevada by 0.3 percentage points (44.6 to 44.3 percent). He is also up in Georgia with 46 percent of the vote compared to Harris' 45.8 and is ahead in North Carolina (45.7 to 44.9 percent).
Harris is up in FiveThirtyEight's national average by 2.6 percentage points (46.2 to 43.7 percent).
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About the writer
Rachel Dobkin is a Newsweek reporter based in New York. Her focus is reporting on politics. Rachel joined Newsweek in ... Read more