Donald Trump Holds Two Swing State Leads Before Debate, Poll Shows

Former President Donald Trump holds a slim lead over Vice President Kamala Harris in two critical swing states ahead of this year’s presidential election, according to a poll published on Monday.
The survey, conducted by the Florida Atlantic University Political Communication and Public Opinion Research Lab (PolCom Lab) and Mainstreet Research USA between September 5 and 6, found that Trump, the GOP’s presidential nominee, was leading Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, in Georgia by 2 points (47 to 45 percent) and North Carolina by 1 point (48 to 47 percent).
Both polls are based on the responses of at least 647 registered U.S. voters residing in their respective states. Georgia’s poll has a margin of error of 3.9 percent, while North Carolina’s margin of error is 3.7 percent.
Newsweek has reached out to Harris’ campaign for comment via email.
Harris and Trump, meanwhile, will face each other for their first debate Tuesday evening in Philadelphia hosted by ABC News. The vice president has held the momentum in the 2024 election since launching her campaign in late July after President Joe Biden stepped down from this year’s race and endorsed her. However, polling shows Trump and Harris locked in a neck-and-neck race to the White House.
A survey by Patriot Polling conducted between September 1 and 3 found that Harris and Trump are in a “dead heat” across the seven swing states that Biden flipped by a narrow margin during the 2020 election. According to the pollster, Trump is set to win Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina and Pennsylvania, while Harris is set to narrowly win Michigan and Wisconsin.
Per RealClear Polling’s averages, as of Monday afternoon, Trump is slightly ahead of Harris in Arizona by 1.6 points (48.4 to 46.8 percent) and in North Carolina by just 0.7 points (47.9 to 47.2 percent). Harris holds a small lead in Nevada (48 to 47.4 percent), Michigan (48.3 to 47.1 percent), Georgia (48.3 to 48.2 percent) and Wisconsin (48.7 to 47.2 percent). The candidates are tied in Pennsylvania at 47.6 percent, according to the polling analysis site.
Overall, in a multi-candidate race, RealClear Polling finds that Harris is in the lead across national polling by 1.9 percent on average (47 to 45.1 percent). That average is based on polling responses where third-party candidates are also included on the ballot, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has dropped out of the 2024 race and endorsed Trump.
The polling site FiveThirtyEight also finds that Harris is leading Trump among national polling (47.2 to 44.4 percent), but some experts have warned that Trump may be under-polling similar to his campaigns in 2016 and 2020, when preliminary polls did not accurately estimate the former president’s support come Election Day.
Polling analyst Nate Silver, who is the founder of ABC News’ poll aggregator FiveThirtyEight, said on Sunday in his latest Silver Bulletin update that recent polling shows that the momentum has started to shift from Harris to Trump. In his blog post, Silver pointed to the latest poll by The New York Times and Siena College, which found Trump leading Harris nationally 48 to 47 percent.
Silver, who is no longer affiliated with ABC News or FiveThirtyEight, noted that with roughly eight weeks until the election, the momentum could again shift in Harris’ favor, including after events like Tuesday night’s debate.
“Debates are often judged relative to expectations,” he added.
When reached for comment on Monday afternoon, Trump’s campaign shared a statement from Republican National Committee (RNC) spokesperson Taylor Rogers, who said over email that “voters across the country know they were better off four years ago under President Trump.”
“Even after $250 million in ad spending over just the past seven weeks, the polls show Kamala cannot make up for four years of her failed and radical agenda,” Rogers said in the email to Newsweek. “In November, Americans will retire dangerously liberal Kamala Harris and send President Trump back to the White House.”
Update 09/09/24, 6:48 p.m. ET: This story has been updated with comment from RNC spokesperson Taylor Rogers.