A leading election analyst on Wednesday changed his ratings for three states in the presidential race in favor of the Democrats as Vice President Harris gains significantly in the polls over former President Trump.
The crystal ball on Saturday has changed his rating of Minnesota and New Hampshire from “leaning Democratic” to “leaning Democratic” and of Georgia from “leaning Republican” to “undecided” on Wednesday, noting that Harris had performed better overall than President Biden before he dropped out of the race last month.
“In the few weeks that Vice President Kamala Harris has emerged as the standard-bearer for the Democrats, she has to some extent ‘reshuffled’ the electoral map, as she has performed better in the polls than President Biden did before he ended his campaign,” said a post explaining the change.
The post adds that Harris has at least managed to “stop the bleeding” since Biden’s indigent debate performance against Trump in behind schedule June. Several national poll aggregators put her at least slightly ahead of Trump in a comparison, while Biden generally trailed the former president before his exit.
Sabato’s Crystal Ball initially rated Minnesota – the home state of Harris’s running mate, Gov. Tim Walz – as Democrat-friendly because its analysis shows the state to be only slightly further left than Michigan, which is considered a tiebreaker. But some recent polls, including one from Fox News that had her ahead by 6 percentage points and one from KSTP/SurveyUSA that had her ahead by 10 percentage points, suggest the state will likely continue to vote bluer than the country as a whole.
The article says that Walz’s inclusion on the ballot only pushes him further into the category of “likely Democrats,” even though vice presidential candidates typically carry little advantage in their home state.
According to Crystal Ball, New Hampshire was by far the closest to Minnesota in 2020, and polls have shown the state achieving similar results to four years ago. Surveys have shown With Harris, Democrats in the Granite State regained a larger lead than before, after Trump had been narrowly ahead in a poll immediately before Biden’s departure.
Regarding the Georgia shift, the post said that Biden’s path to victory during his campaign seemed to run through the Midwest as several Sun Belt states slipped away from him. States in that region, such as Arizona and Nevada, remained undecided, but Georgia trended Republican in June.
Since her candidacy, Harris exceeded Biden’s numbersand Trump has venerable wounds reopened to attack Georgia Governor Brian Kemp (R) and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R), both of whom are popular in the state. Sabato said this makes the state “more legitimately competitive” than it was with Biden in the race.
“As for the overall course of the 2024 race, there has been no shortage of whiplash since late June. The rapid developments since the debate have been a lot to process for those of us who follow politics professionally, not to mention voters just getting into the campaign trail,” the post said. “Perhaps the character of the race will be less fluid by Labor Day, when both conventions will have concluded. But for now, we believe it is justified to see at least some states moving back in the Democratic direction.”
