Harris’ lead dips in national US polls and it’s very close in the key states

The United States presidential election will be held on November 5. In analyst Nate Silver’s aggregate of national polls, Democrat Kamala Harris leads Republican Donald Trump by 48.7–46.2. In my previous US politics article on August 30, Harris led Trump by 48.8–45.0.

Joe Biden’s final position before his withdrawal as Democratic candidate on July 21 was a national poll deficit against Trump of 45.2–41.2. By the election, Biden will be almost 82, Trump is now 78 and Harris will be 60.

The next event that could potentially change the race is Tuesday’s debate between Harris and Trump (Wednesday at 11am AEST). The June 27 debate between Biden and Trump eventually led to Biden’s withdrawal. With her current weakening poll numbers, it’s Harris that will need to perform best.

The US president isn’t elected by the national popular vote, but by the Electoral College, in which each state receives electoral votes equal to its federal House seats (population based) and senators (always two). Almost all states award their electoral votes as winner takes all, and it takes 270 electoral votes to win (out of 538 total).

The most important swing state is Pennsylvania, with 19 electoral votes. Silver’s aggregate gives Harris just a 0.3% lead in that state. Harris leads in Georgia (16 electoral votes) by 0.1% and in Michigan (15 electoral votes) by 1.2%. The Electoral College is biased to Trump, with Harris needing to win the national popular vote by at least two points to be the Electoral College favourite.

Harris’ Electoral College win probability has dropped in Silver’s model in every day’s update since August 27, and Trump now has a 64% chance to win, his highest since Silver started his Harris vs Trump model in late July. Harris’ win probability peaked at 57% on August 14.

The FiveThirtyEight forecast model still has Harris narrowly ahead with a 53% win probability. The difference is mostly because Silver’s model is applying a convention bounce adjustment to Harris’ current polls owing to the late August Democratic convention. With Harris’ numbers slipping, this convention bounce adjustment is justified.

A national poll by the highly regarded Siena for The New York Times that was conducted recently (September 3–6) gave Trump a 48–47 lead. In this poll, 47% said Harris was too left-wing, while only 32% thought that Trump was too right-wing.

Silver said that left-wing positions Harris took in 2019 during her failed 2020 presidential campaign may be biting her now. He particularly cites Harris’ agreement with the proposition that her “health care plan would provide coverage for undocumented immigrants” in one of the 2019 Democratic debates as an example of Harris being too left-wing.

I wrote about the US election for The Poll Bludger last Thursday, and also covered the lack of a honeymoon for the UK’s new Labour government, the lack of a French PM two months after the parliamentary election (President Emmanuel Macron has now appointed the right-wing Michel Barnier PM), and the far-right’s gains in two German state elections.

Full Australian Redbridge poll details

I previously referred to a national Redbridge poll, but did not have full details then. Labor led by 50.5–49.5, a two-point gain for Labor since the mid-July Redbridge poll. Primary votes were 38% Coalition (down three), 33% Labor (up one), 12% Greens (up one) and 17% for all Others (up one). This poll was conducted August 20–27 from a sample of 2,017.

Just 24% said the Labor government had done something to make their life better. Of those who could identify this, 28% nominated tax cuts and 26% electricity rebates. There was a 31–31 tie on better economic manager between Anthony Albanese and Labor, and Peter Dutton and the Coalition.

By 44–32, voters opposed Australia granting visas to Palestinians fleeing Gaza, while they supported extensive security checks on anyone seeking a visa to leave Palestine by 73–10. By 72–16, voters supported a ban on all online gambling advertising.

Morgan poll: Labor gains to be just ahead

A national Morgan poll, conducted August 26 to September 1 from a sample of 1,697, gave Labor a 50.5–49.5 lead, a one-point gain for Labor since the August 19–25 Morgan poll.

Primary votes were 36% Coalition (down 3.5), 30.5% Labor (up one), 13% Greens (steady), 6% One Nation (up two), 9.5% independents (up 0.5) and 5% others (steady).

The headline figure is based on respondent preferences. Allocating preferences by 2022 election flows gives Labor a 52–48 lead, a two-point gain for Labor.

Final federal redistributions in Victoria and WA

Final federal redistributions were announced last Thursday for Victoria and Western Australia. They confirmed the draft redistributions with the new seat of Bullwinkel created in WA while Higgins was abolished in Victoria. This week, the final redistribution of New South Wales will be released.

There have been minor changes to the draft redistribution, with The Poll Bludger estimating that Labor’s margin in the Victorian seat of McEwen increases from 3.5% under the draft proposal to 3.7%, while their margin in the WA seat of Tangney decreases from 2.9% to 2.6%. I covered the draft redistributions in June.

Final NT election results

At the August 24 Northern Territory election, the Country Liberal Party (CLP) won 17 of the 25 seats (up nine since 2020), Labor four (down ten), the Greens one (up one) and independents three (up one). This is the Greens’ first ever seat in the NT parliament. The Territory Alliance, which won one seat and 12.9% of the NT-wide vote in 2020, did not contest.

After a narrow Greens loss in Fannie Bay, when Labor preference flows were weaker than expected, the Greens had an upset win in Nightcliff, narrowly defeating Labor from third place on primary votes after the exclusions of a progressive independent and the CLP.

Final NT-wide primary votes were 48.9% CLP (up 17.6% since 2020), 28.8% Labor (down 10.7%), 8.1% Greens (up 3.8%) and 14.2% independents (up 2.2%). The ABC’s two-party estimate is a CLP win by 57.4–47.6 over Labor, a 10.4% swing to the CLP. Turnout was just 68.5%, down 6.4% from 2020.