With just weeks to go until Election Day, political prospectors are sifting the polls for nuggets of gold that could provide any indication of which way the country will vote. Yet, when one considers that the final result will be determined by the battleground states, why are the regional responses within national surveys not being examined?
These seven swing states are crucial to winning the Electoral College vote; a combination of them is needed to secure any pathway to victory. According to the RealClearPolitics average as of September 12, here’s where each candidate stands:
As you can see, things are pretty close across the board. But let’s focus specifically on the Midwest, where Harris has two out of her three leading positions in Michigan and Wisconsin. What does national polling tell us about her favorability in these crucial states?
New York Post: Comprising almost 1,200 likely voters (this segment of voters being the gold standard in surveying), Kamala Harris bests Donald Trump nationally by 3%. That’s quite the margin. However, a little delving into the regional responses could prove troublesome for the Democratic Party’s candidate.
That area includes South Dakota and Kansas, states highly favorable to Trump, but it also contains Illinois and Minnesota. Still, one poll is not a trend. So, let’s examine more.
New York Times/Sienna: This poll was more beneficial to Donald Trump, granting him an overall one-point lead against Kamala Harris. It consisted of almost 1,700 of those all-important likely voters. It also divided respondents into the same four regional districts: North East, South, West, and Midwest.
The results were similar to those of the Big Apple’s other major paper. In the North East, voters went for Harris by 13%, and in the West by a mighty 16%. The South opted for Trump by an even higher margin, 17%. But again, it is the Midwest that counts when we’re looking at these two swing states, and those folks granted their preference to the 45th president by 11%.
A similar situation was present in the NPR/PBS/Marist poll and many others. In fact, almost every recent poll that divided into regions displayed pretty much the same trends.
That Kamala Harris was going to romp home in California and New York is of no surprise whatsoever; any candidate whose name is followed by the letter “D” is going to secure a vast majority in these regions. The same is mostly true for Donald Trump and any other possible Republican candidate in the South. But these are not where the election will be won.
Of the seven crucial battleground states, Harris currently leads in three, according to in-state polling. Yet, after comparing the national vs. regional views, it seems she will have a steeper hill to climb to retain even those. While Pennsylvania is ultimately the real Keystone State, if Michigan and Wisconsin end up favoring her opponent, Kamala’s path to the White House becomes almost non-existent.