With less than a month to go until Election Day, polling suggests that the 2024 presidential race is very close -- with Kamala Harris leading nationally, amid a dead heat in the battlegrounds. The Harris campaign has been playing what amounts to prevent defense in a tied game, an approach that has started to worry fellow Democrats. Those concerns are finally pushing Team Harris to engage in more interviews and active campaigning. As we assess the state of the race, we keep reiterating that one of the major questions hanging over everything is whether the polling will again miss Trump's level of support (with a Trump over-performance against projections), or if things could shake out along the lines of 2022 (a Republican under-performance in what should have been a favorable midterm cycle, albeit without Trump on the ballot or presidential-level turnout). The New York Times' Nate Cohn has a bit of a deep dive on that question here, which is worth taking a look at.
In my mind, one of the related questions is whether the mounting evidence that Trump is over-performing among key groups -- and if so, where Harris is making up the difference. Over the last few weeks, we have seen statistical and anecdotal evidence that the Republican is cutting into Joe Biden's 2020 margins among traditionally Democrat-friendly demographics. Biden won the national 'popular vote' by more than four points four years ago, but came within 44,000 flipped votes spread over just three battleground states (AZ/GA/WI) of losing the election. Even modest shifts in his direction could conceivably prove decisive this time. For example, recent NAACP polling suggests Donald Trump could improve upon his performance among black voters this year, especially with young men. This has been a phenomenon even some Democrats and pundits have acknowledged as a potential problem:
Over one quarter of younger Black men say they would support Republican candidate Donald Trump in this year's U.S. presidential election, an NAACP poll showed...Most Black voters, 63%, plan to support Harris, compared with 13% for Trump, according to the new NAACP survey, which interviewed 1,000 registered Black voters across the U.S. from Aug. 6 to Aug. 12. But 26% of Black men under 50 years old said they supported Trump, versus 49% who backed Harris. For Black men above 50, 77% said they supported Harris. Sixty-seven percent of Black women said they supported Harris, while 8% said they supported Trump...Top issues for Black voters were the economy, crime, and public safety, the survey found, with the cost of food and groceries, housing, and utilities being the biggest economic stressors. Eighty-two percent of Black men under 50 listed economic issues among the most important issues facing the country today, compared with 75% of Black women of all ages.
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Among Hispanics, NBC News just published data showing substantial erosion of Democrats' advantage:
What's behind this Latino-voter erosion for Democrats? Men and younger Latinos pic.twitter.com/AhsLLHU6wD
— Mark Murray (@mmurraypolitics) September 29, 2024
BREAKING: Kamala Harris is posting a severely narrowing lead among HISPANICS, new polling shows.
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) September 29, 2024
This would have disastrous consequences in AZ and NV. pic.twitter.com/HzXbPkJI8X
It's not a one-off survey, either. We highlighted a new poll of Florida Hispanics last week, and there's also this:
#NEW BATTLEGROUND poll, among Hispanics
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) October 3, 2024
🟡 Total: Harris+16 [-17]
🟡 AZ: Harris+11 [-13]
🟡 GA: Harris+16 [-9]
🟡 NV: Harris+12 [-14]
🟡 NC: Harris+9 [-6]
🟡 PA: Harris+30 [-12]
🟡 WI: Harris+17 [-6]
🟡 MI: Harris+20 [+9]
[+/- from Biden 2020]
Latino Opinions | Sept. 17-22 |…
Then there's this data point, which suggests Trump is at least significantly more competitive with Harris among Arab-Americans. For reference, Biden beat Trump by roughly 25 points within this group in the previous election:
The ongoing war in Gaza has turned historical Arab American support for Democratic candidates on its head, with 46 percent of likely voters polled by the Arab American Institute saying they would support former President Trump, while 42 percent said they would back Vice President Harris. Normally, Democrats have a 2-to-1 advantage among Arab Americans in elections. Wednesday’s poll found Harris is running 18 points behind the Arab American support for President Biden in the 2020 election, when 6 in 10 Arab Americans voted for the Democrat. Trump’s lead over Harris, however, are within the margin of error of the poll.
And what about the union vote? The Teamsters notably opted for a non-endorsement after their rank-and-file members lopsidedly preferred Trump in internal polling. Another Democrat-friendly union, which was the first out of the gate to back Biden in 2020, is also withholding its endorsement:
IAFF endorsement history:
— Steve Morris (@stevemorris__) October 3, 2024
1984: Mondale
1988: Dukakis
1992: Clinton
1996: Clinton
2000: Gore
2004: Kerry
2008: Obama
2012: Obama
2016: No one
2020: Biden
2024: No one https://t.co/23dcVjof4K
There is clearly an emerging permission structure within Big Labor -- among workers, at least -- to buck their organizations' longstanding ties to Democrats. That sea change within the working class is resulting in trends like this:
In deep-blue Philly, working class voters are shifting toward Republicans. Democrats have lost the most ground in neighborhoods where poverty rates are highest. It could hurt Kamala Harris in November...One of Democrats’ biggest problems in Pennsylvania: working-class voters in Philadelphia, a once reliable voting bloc for the party, have drifted right in recent years. And they’ve been disproportionately affected by rising prices over the last several years, an issue many blame Democrats for. It’s one of the biggest potential areas of concern for Harris...The trend was consistent across racial groups, though it was most pronounced in majority-Latino neighborhoods. In two North Philadelphia political wards — including the one where Lopez lives — Biden in 2020 performed worse in nearly every voting division than Clinton did in 2016. In some areas, voters increasingly cast ballots for Trump. In others, Democratic vote totals declined because turnout did — fewer people showing up in blue strongholds is effectively a gain for Republicans.
Finally, along these lines, here is a CNN report about young voters in battleground Michigan:
New York Times poll shows Trump tied with Harris among young voters in Michigan
— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) October 3, 2024
READ: https://t.co/Y4CXqEoWMu#NYT #NewYorkTimes #Poll #CNN #DonaldTrump #Trump #Election2024 #KamalaHarris #Harris #Left #Democrat #Republicans #US #Politics #News #Viralvideo #ViralVideos pic.twitter.com/hay67HARO9
John King questions whether polling showing the youth vote deadlocked in the Wolverine State is real, but concedes that Harris isn't replicating Biden's big lead. "She's not doing as well as he did. There's no doubt about that," he says. Taken together, these look like major red flags for Harris, who is hoping to reassemble the Biden coalition. At least according to some of the evidence, she's lagging among black, Hispanic, young, working class, and Arab-American voters. It's conceivable that even minor under-performances among some of these groups, let alone all of them, could be a major problem for her electoral prospects -- unless she makes up ground elsewhere. The most obvious demographics would be white voters and women. According to the 2020 exit polls, Biden lost white voters by 17 points, and won women by 15 points.
What are we looking at this year? A recent national Marist poll measures a two-point national race, in favor of Harris (likely indicating very close swing states). For context, this pollster had Biden leading Trump by 11 points in mid-October of 2020, missing the actual margin by nearly seven percentage points. The new Marist poll shows Trump leading among white voters by just eight points. On the other hand, the survey shows Trump within 21 points among non-white voters, as opposed to Biden's 45-point margin with non-whites four years ago. Trump's Marist poll deficit with women is on par with what it was in the national results last time out, but he's doing much better with men this time, doubling his margin among men from eight-points in the 2020 exit polls to 16 points in the new survey. Biden won independent voters by 13 points; the Marist poll now gives Trump a small edge over Harris with those unaffiliated voters. Feed all of that into the grinder, and it spits out a virtual tie. We'll see.
In short, the Harris campaign will hope that (1) Trump's over-performances (and her under-performances) within the usually-blue-tinted groups mentioned above end up looking significantly and uniformly exaggerated once the actual results come in, (2) the 2020 gender gap does not close, and (3) any Trump improvements among people of color get wiped out by blue-shifting college-educated whites. I'll leave you with this, which shows a one-point national race when leans are included:
Vance and Walz each at 45% favorability in this poll https://t.co/DlbHyOD4xv
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) October 6, 2024
For what it's worth, this poll was in the field before Vance's much-watched debate victory.
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