The Cook Political Report moved Arizona, Georgia and Nevada away from former President Donald Trump, switching them from “Lean Republican” to “toss-ups” as Vice President Kamala Harris enjoys a polling bump.
Last month, the election handicapper shifted those three states toward Trump in the aftermath of President Biden’s brutal debate performance, but now the election dynamic has seemingly reset with Harris at the helm of the Democratic ticket.
“Three weeks ago, Donald Trump was leading President Joe Biden in the Cook Political Report national vote tracker by about 2.5%. Today, Kamala Harris leads Trump by less than one point, a shift of more than three points in Harris’ direction,” Cook Political Report’s editor-in-chief Amy Walter explained.
“For the first time in a long time, Democrats are united and energized, while Republicans are on their heels,” she added. “The presidential contest has moved from one that was Trump’s to lose to a much more competitive contest.”
She ran through various data showing stark changes in polling since Biden’s sudden exit from the race. This includes averages showing Trump’s advantage in Georgia dwindling from a 5.9-point lead to just 1 point, and in Arizona from a 5.5-point lead down to 1.9 points.
Thus far, there have been sparse surveys done in Nevada, but Walter pointed to recent CBS and Bloomberg polling that had Harris in the lead.
Despite that recent change from the Cook Political Report, it still prognosticates that Trump, 78, is ahead in the election – but at 235 Electoral College votes for the former president and 226 toward Harris, 59.
To win the 2024 battle, one must clinch 270 Electoral College votes, and the election handicapper ranks 77 electoral votes as tossups.
“We are the underdogs in this race,” Harris declared during an energetic rally in Philadelphia Tuesday where she unveiled Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) as her running mate.
Her campaign has repeatedly underscored that it views the 2024 contest as a nail-bitter.
Trump’s team has similarly contended that it is taking nothing for granted, either.
Harris has a 0.8 percentage-point edge in the latest RealClearPolitics aggregate of polling in a five-way national matchup. Trump had long held a national lead against Biden in the RCP aggregate.
Meanwhile, the Trump campaign has been skeptical of the polling, accusing some of having been manipulated to show him losing ground.
“The Fake News Media continue to help dangerously liberal Kamala hide her record of economic failure and soft-on-crime policies. Now, as this analysis shows they’ll even put a finger on the scale of polling to inflate results for her,” senior campaign advisor Brian Hughes said in a statement over the weekend.
Boasting about enthusiasm, the Harris campaign claims the vice president has garnered crowd sizes of 14,000 people and a $310 million fundraising haul during the month of July.
Trump has accused her of paying people to attend the rallies, though he shared no proof of the claim.
“If Kamala has 1,000 people at a Rally, the Press goes ‘crazy,’ and talks about how ‘big’ it was – And she pays for her ‘Crowd,’” Trump groused on Truth Social Thursday.
“When I have a Rally, and 100,000 people show up, the Fake News doesn’t talk about it, THEY REFUSE TO MENTION CROWD SIZE. The Fake News is the Enemy of the People!” he added.
Trump and his campaign have also needled Harris for sparingly answering on-the-record questions from reporters since Biden threw in the towel last month.
Highlighting that grievance, Trump scheduled a press conference at Mar-a-Lago on Thursday.
