New national polls show former President Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris locked in a dead heat, injecting even more uncertainty into the momentous White House contest as the campaign heads into the final full week before Election Day.
With tens of millions of Americans already casting ballots, including in New York where early voting started Saturday, some polls show Trump closing the gap with Harris in the national popular vote, a tally he lost badly to Democrats in both 2020 and even 2016 when he won the presidency.
Kamala Harris campaigns with former President Barack Obama in Georgia on Thursday. (Getty)
But Harris, the Democratic nominee, remains narrowly ahead in polling averages in enough of the battleground states she needs to win 270 electoral votes and win the race.
In another possible good sign for Harris, some polls say previously undecided voters who made up their mind in recent days or weeks are breaking for her, a trend that could tip the contest.
Most strategists question whether Trump has any realistic chance of winning the national popular vote, given that the GOP has only won the popular vote once in the last eight elections.
Basil Smikle, a Columbia professor and Democratic strategist, noted that Trump has struggled to break through a stubborn high-water mark of about 47% of the national electorate.
“The race will be close but the enthusiasm gap is not,” Smikle told The News. “Trump’s numbers generally hit a ceiling but Harris has the ability to bring out more voters in more parts of the country that the models predict.”
Tom Watson, a New York-based Democratic strategist, pointed out that the gap between the popular vote, which leans Democratic, and the electoral college contest is much less pronounced than in past presidential votes.
He blamed that phenomenon on Trump’s harsh rhetoric, which has added to his numbers somewhat in non-battleground states like New York and Florida, but caused “the gradual peeling away from very thin slices from his brand of politics, particularly independent and GOP women” in the swing states.
GOP-aligned analysts counter that the polls show a small but clear shift to Trump in the final days of a race that has otherwise remained remarkably stable for months.
“Trump has real momentum and it has been building for a month,” said Matt Mackowiak, a Texas-based Republican strategist. “The battleground state polling is moving in his direction … and Harris appears to be panicking.”
Donald Trump makes a campaign stop at a Cuban restaurant in Las Vegas on Thursday. (Getty)
Tellingly, even Mackowiak predicted Trump would lose the popular vote like every GOP candidate since George W. Bush won reelection over John Kerry in 2004.
Three highly respected pollsters released their final national surveys before Election Day on Friday.
Both the New York Times/Siena College and CNN found the national race deadlocked. The Wall Street Journal gave Trump a 3% lead, which is within the margin of error.
All three polls showed an uptick in support for Trump and declines in Harris’ popularity since their previous national surveys completed last month, a sign that relentless Republican attacks are having an impact.
The real contest takes place in the seven battleground states that analysts on both sides of the aisle agree will determine the winner. In those swing states, Harris still leads polling averages in all three crucial Rust Belt states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, albeit by the slimmest of margins.
If Harris wins those states she will almost certainly win the 270 electoral votes needed to win White House, even if Trump’s slender lead holds in the Sun Belt swing states of Georgia, Arizona and North Carolina.
The CNN poll also included some very good news for Harris: She leads by a wide 61%-to-36% margin among voters who have already cast their ballots, suggesting she has banked a significant lead among the 33 million Americans and counting who have already voted.
Another glimmer of hope for Democrats is that some surveys say the voters deciding at the last minute are more likely to back Harris, a phenomenon that could fuel a late surge.
A major poll by Emerson College released last week found Harris winning 60% of the voters who said they decided in the last month, compared to a 4% lead for Trump among those who decided earlier in the campaign.
Millions of New Yorkers got their chance to join the nationwide parade to the polls on Saturday when early voting started. It will continue through next Sunday, Nov. 3 when election workers will shift gears to preparing for Election Day.