Harris and Trump

In the last week and a half PPP has done over 30 polls both statewide and in various districts in Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Texas.

That represents a pretty broad swath of the country and in the polls that included the Presidential race Kamala Harris is doing an average of one point better than Joe Biden did in the same places.

That’s great news for Democrats! If that held across the board she would win by a commanding 5 point margin in the popular vote and win the Electoral College 303-235 while just falling the slightest bit short in North Carolina.

In 2020 81% of Republicans voted in North Carolina and only 75% of Democrats did- if the excitement around Kamala Harris evens that out it’s easy to imagine a world where it narrowly flips blue too and Harris wins 319-219. A blow out!

So Democrats should feel good right? Yes…but very cautiously so. Right now Harris is running a point ahead of Biden 2020. But let’s say that instead there was a small shift in the race and instead she actually ran a point behind Biden 2020. That would flip Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin into the Trump column and give him a 272-266 Electoral College win even as Harris won the popular vote by 3 points.

Make it a 1.2 point shift in Trump’s direction and Pennsylvania goes red too for a 291-247 win.

Things are going great right now. But that’s how thin the line is. 1.4 point movement in a Democratic direction from 2020, Harris wins by 100 electoral votes. 1.2 point movement in a Republican direction from 2020, Trump wins by 44 electoral votes. That’s why it’s so important to sustain the energy and momentum from convention week for another ten weeks.