Donald Trump was in for a shock on Friday night when Fox News reported new poll results from four key states.Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin) shows three people so close together that it’s impossible to tell which one is which, and the remaining person runs away.
While it’s not ideal for a presidential campaign to peak nearly 100 days before the election, these surveys, especially when compared with other polls favoring Trump, suggest the former president’s case against Biden isn’t translating as easily as Republican strategists had hoped into his case against Vice President Kamala Harris.
They also suggest the election campaign is slipping away from Trump.
Especially considering that the common thread between these polls seems to be a check on “vibe” — in other words, battleground voters currently prefer Kamala Harris over Donald Trump — and it’s unclear how the Republican candidate will change that.
As the Fox poll shows, regardless of who’s leading or lagging, Trump is in the water everywhere and Harris isn’t: great for scuba diving, but not great for a close election.
In Michigan, a state Biden won by less than 3 points in 2020, Harris and Trump are tied at 49% in their head-to-head vote, but in a race that also includes Robert Kennedy Jr. (5%), Jill Stein (1%) and Cornel West (1%), Trump leads Harris 45% to 43%.
There are other positives for Trump, relatively speaking: He won 17% of the black vote here, far better than the 0% that showed up in a recent Detroit News/WDIV-TV Live Dial Michigan Poll.
Trump also holds a majority among independents, with 36% support, putting him more than double digits ahead of Harris and Kennedy.
Still, Harris is rated more favorably than Trump, though only by one point.
Wisconsin has been decided by less than 1 percentage point in the past two elections, but Trump has a 1-point lead in the binary race and is tied at 46 percent among expansion candidates.
In the larger battle, Harris has the support of 92% of Democrats and 51% of women. Trump has the support of 52% of men and 89% of Republicans, and is at +2 among independents.
But as in Michigan, Harris’ net approval rating is five points higher: 49% approve and 49% disapprove, compared with 47% and 52% for Trump.
Pennsylvania, which was a close race with just over a negative point in 2020, is a close two-way race here, 49%-49%.
That sounds great, but Trump has reason to worry: He’s only winning over 85% of Republicans among the expansion candidates, and his approval rating among Republicans has dropped to 45% to 43%.
There are other warning signs among the candidates: Trump leads by just eight points among male voters and four points among white voters.
In terms of approval ratings, Harris remains stable at 49% approval and 53% disapproval, while Trump is 7 points behind (46% approval, 53% disapproval).
In Minnesota, Harris leads by six points in the two-way contest, Trump has 84% of Republicans and a seven-point lead among the expansion candidates, who hold a five-point lead among men and white voters. Harris is four points ahead of Trump in the polls, giving her a 17-point net lead.
Republicans have criticized the media and Democrats for changing their presidential candidate before the convention.
Sure, they’re reliable punching bags, but playing the excuse game more than three months before an election is not as effective as coming up with a winning strategy.
The problem is that when it comes to a showdown with Harris, Trump’s top strategists appear to be caught off guard by a major challenge facing Republican candidates after the convention: changing the “mood” that has looked favorable to Harris since Biden left office last weekend.
Friday The Brian Kilmeade ShowTrump adviser Chris LaCivita vowed to provide a “split screen all day long” between the candidate and the vice president on a range of issues during the campaign.
He also suggested it was premature to schedule a September debate between Trump and Harris because the Democratic Party “doesn’t have a candidate yet” and “there’s room for someone to come up against her.”
“She doesn’t set the tone … we set the agenda and we run with it,” LaCivita said, speaking as if the Trump campaign was leading by 10 points rather than a race with a margin of error where the candidate is struggling in key metrics.
Is there time to get back on track?
probably.
But is there any interest?
A decision is made.
