A new poll shows former President Trump holding a slim five-point lead over Vice President Kamala Harris in the race for Florida’s 30 electoral votes.
Republican presidential nominee Trump has the support of 47% of Florida voters, while Democratic candidate Harris has 42%, according to a USA Today/Suffolk University/WSVN-TV poll released Tuesday.
The survey of 500 Florida voters showed Democrat-turned-independent Robert F. Kennedy with 5 percent, Libertarian Party candidate Chase Oliver with 1 percent, and Green Party candidate Jill Stein and independent Cornel West with less than 1 percent.
See the latest Fox News poll for the 2024 election here
A new poll puts former President Trump ahead of Vice President Harris by five points in Florida. (Getty Images)
Florida was once the largest swing state in presidential elections: Former President Barack Obama narrowly won the state in 2008 and 2012, and Trump narrowly won it over Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in 2016.
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But four years ago, Trump lost his 2020 reelection bid, winning Florida by 3.3 percentage points to President Biden, the state’s largest margin of victory in a presidential election in 16 years.
Former President Trump leaves the venue after speaking at a campaign rally at Trump National Doral Golf Club in Doral, Florida, on July 9, 2024. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
And the 2022 midterm elections saw a conservative surge at the state level, with Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis winning reelection by 19 points and Republican Sen. Marco Rubio securing a third term in the Senate by more than 16 points.
“While this isn’t exactly a red flag for Trump, it is a warning sign for anyone who thinks he will win Florida by a large margin,” said David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Research Center.
New voter registration numbers released in Florida on Monday showed Republicans holding a 1 million-person lead over Democrats, a stark change from four years ago, when Democrats had a slight voter registration advantage.
“Given this, I’m surprised Harris is within five points of winning,” Palaiologos added.
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A Fox News poll conducted in June, when President Biden was still the leading Democratic candidate for 2024, showed Trump with a four-point advantage in Florida, 50% to 46%.
But after Trump’s disastrous defeat in a debate with the Republican candidate in late June, his lead in the polls over Biden has widened.
Biden’s disjointed and incoherent answers during the debate raised questions about whether the 81-year-old president has the physical and mental strength to serve another four years in the White House and prompted calls from within his own party for him to drop out of the 2024 campaign.
Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at a campaign rally in Atlanta on July 30, 2024. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)
Democrats quickly rallied around Harris after Biden’s shock announcement 3 1/2 weeks ago that he was ending his reelection campaign and endorsing his vice president to succeed him as the party’s top choice.
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Since taking over as party leader in 2024, Harris has seen her popularity soar in opinion polls and fundraising surge.
The latest polling shows Florida voters are comparable in enthusiasm for Harris and Trump, with 89% of each group saying they are very or somewhat excited to vote for their preferred candidate. A USA Today/Suffolk poll in June found Biden supporters in Florida were just 60% enthusiastic.
The new survey was conducted Aug. 7-11 and has a sampling error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.
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