A leading election forecaster on Wednesday revised his projections for three presidential states to favor Democrats as Vice President Harris’ approval rating soared against former President Trump.
Sabbath’s Crystal Ball Raised the rating The report changed the results of Minnesota and New Hampshire from “Democrats likely” to “Democrats likely” and Georgia from “Republicans likely” to “Close race,” and noted that Harris’ approval ratings are generally better than President Biden’s before he dropped out of the race last month.
“In the weeks since Vice President Kamala Harris emerged as the Democratic Party’s standard-bearer, she has somewhat ‘reset’ the electoral map, with her approval ratings surpassing President Biden’s approval ratings before the end of his campaign,” read the post explaining the shift.
He added that Harris was at least “able to stop the bleeding” after Biden’s poor performance in the debates with Trump in late June. National polling agencies say Harris is at least slightly ahead of Trump, while Biden was generally lagging behind Trump before withdrawing from the debates.
Sabato’s Crystal Ball initially projected Minnesota, home state of Harris’ running mate, Governor Tim Walz, to be favored only by Democrats, citing analysis that the state leans slightly to the left of Michigan, which is also considered a close race. However, several recently released polls, including one that gave Harris a 6-point lead in a Fox News poll and one that gave her a 10-point lead in a KSTP/SurveyUSA poll, suggest Minnesota continues to be more likely to vote Democratic than the nation as a whole.
The post noted that while vice presidential candidates typically generate only a slight local advantage, Walz’s inclusion on the list of contenders puts him more firmly in the “likely Democratic nominee” category.
Crystal Ball noted that New Hampshire was the closest state in 2020, along with Minnesota, and the poll shows the state fared similarly four years ago. The poll shows that Harris has restored Democrats’ traditional lead in New Hampshire, where Trump had a slight lead in the polls just before Biden dropped out.
Regarding developments in Georgia, the post noted that throughout the campaign, Biden’s path to victory appeared to be through the Midwest, with several Sun Belt states moving away from him. While Arizona and Nevada in the region remained close, Georgia moved toward the Republican Party in June.
Harris has outperformed Biden in the polls since she entered the race, and Trump has reopened old wounds by attacking Georgia’s popular Republican governor, Brian Kemp, and Republican Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, making the state “legitimately more competitive” than it was when Biden was running, Sabato said.
“In terms of the overall trajectory of the 2024 campaign, it has been in a state of extreme flux since late June. The rapid developments since the debates have been hard to comprehend for those of us who work in politics, much less for voters who have just begun to follow the race,” the post read. “Perhaps the race will be less fluid by Labor Day, when both party conventions conclude, but for now we feel it is justified to move at least some states in the Democratic direction.”
