Donald Trump still leads Vice President Kamala Harris in the race for Arizona's 11 electoral votes, but the new Democratic candidate has been reversing the former president's fortunes in key voting bloc since replacing Joe Biden in the lead.
That's the finding from a new survey of 1,003 registered voters. Noble Predictive Insightsshows the former president leading by 3 points at 47% to Trump's 44% in a head-to-head matchup in the Grand Canyon State.
Trump's 3-point lead in the two-way race is consistent with Noble's previous poll, conducted in May, when Joe Biden was the Democratic nominee.
But while the lead has remained unchanged and remains within the margin of error, the numbers offer new signs that the race is becoming more dynamic than it would have been if Biden had won.
While 15% of those surveyed were undecided when Trump and Biden were on the ballot, just 9% said they were undecided now.
And that appears to be good news for the incumbent party, with pollsters saying the new candidate could re-energize the Democratic Party and encourage “prodigal” Democrats who didn't like Biden to return to the party.
To do so, Harris has solidified support among three groups crucial to her victory in November's election: independents, Latinos and young voters.
“Harris gained a large lead among key voter groups in August, some of which were Trump's lead in May,” the pollsters said.
In August, Trump had a 10-point lead over Biden among independents, but Harris now leads the former president by five points.
She also erased Trump's two-point lead among voters under 35 and now leads Trump by 11 points in that demographic.
Among Latino voters, she took Biden's two-point advantage and expanded it to a 12-point lead.
“With Biden gone, people are comfortable with the major party options,” said Mike Noble, founder and CEO of Noble Predictive Insights.
“Nearly every poll has it between Harris +5 and Trump +5,” NPI principal pollster David Byler said. “This suggests a pretty even race. Trump has a slight edge in this poll, but with more than two months left, either candidate could win the state.”
The Arizona contest also upends the so-called “double-hater” theory that dominated the Trump-Biden contest, which forces voters to hold their noses and vote for who they hate most.
Between the May and August surveys, doubly averse people fell from 15% to 10%, and 92% of Trump supporters voted for him rather than against the Democratic candidate.
Meanwhile, while 86% of voters who voted for Harris were motivated by positive feelings about the candidate, roughly 20% of independents, moderates and men who voted for Harris actually voted primarily with the intention of voting against Trump.
Noble's poll FiveThirtyEight The average shows Harris leading Trump by one point in the Copper State.
