Kamala Harris leads Trump – is this already a trend?

In the US, most polls show voters are inclined to vote for Kamala Harris. But that alone is not enough for her to win.

Kamala Harris is ahead of Donald Trump in many polls. In a nationwide comparison of several survey institutes, the British “Guardian” sees the American vice presidents currently at 48.2 percent, while the Republicans are at 44.4 percent. This seems to confirm a positive trend for Harris that has continued since Joe Biden gave up the presidential race. The US poll website FiveThirtyEight sees a 58 percent chance that Harris will win the election in November. The election researchers calculate only 42 percent for Trump.

And yet that’s no reason for Harris to celebrate. In the American electoral system, it is not important who gets the most votes from voters. Whoever receives the most votes from electors is elected. And these are determined in the states, some provide more, others less. This makes the states in which there are many electoral votes and which are traditionally competitive – the swing states – particularly interesting.

Although Hillary Clinton had a large majority of voters in 2016, Donald Trump was able to secure electoral votes in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. That was enough for him to win.

“We talk about these national polls, but the bottom line is it’s a race for 270 electoral votes,” said CNN data analyst Harry Enten. “One way to understand this is: What are Harris’ chances if she rises in voter favorability? And what is the chance of winning the electoral vote?” For him, what matters is how big the gap in voters’ favor is. According to the analyst, the further ahead Harris is in the polls, the greater her chances of victory.

According to the Guardian, Nate Cohn, who analyzes survey results for the New York Times, sees a similar trend. “There is increasing evidence of a surprising possibility: [Trumps] Once-huge margins in the Electoral College are not as ironclad as many suspected. “Instead, it could shrink,” Cohn argued. This requires a lead in the total number of votes.

The poll numbers in the states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin provide an indication of the leadership: Here Harris is just ahead, with a gap of one to two percentage points. However, Newsweek magazine sees no reason for optimism in this. Especially in Wisconsin, polls are often better for the Democrats than is the case in the election. In addition, the error rate in surveys is around four percent. In Michigan, both candidates were tied, although Harris had previously had a lead.

At the same time, Trump appears to be making gains in states where he has previously been given fewer chances. In New York, a democratic bastion, Trump can suddenly make slight gains, as the Guardian reports.

One reason for Trump’s slightly improving poll numbers in three states in the so-called Rust Belt, where many workers live, could be economic policy. “Voters in Michigan, Wisconsin and Ohio trust Trump more than Harris: The former president has 54 percent approval on the issue, Harris 42 percent,” the New York Post reports, based on the period between March 21 and 26 The Times survey was conducted in September. In North Carolina it also currently looks like a stalemate. Trump won here in 2016 and 2020, but according to a Fox study he is only one percentage point ahead.

As long as polls for both candidates are still within the margin of error, reliable statements are impossible. But if the experts at CNN and the Times are right, at least a trend is foreseeable. With a margin of 3.6 percent, Harris is approaching the four percent margin of error. If it exceeds this nationwide, this can also have an impact on the opinion of voters in the states, says “Guardian” expert Robert Tait in his analysis of the current surveys.