Like President Joe Biden before her, Vice President Kamala Harris‘s map back to the White House is poised to go through Pennsylvania.
While proper polling of Harris’s prospects against former President Donald Trump this November is only days old, the battleground state data, instead of her fundraising numbers and social media memes, underscore how Trump maintains an advantage.
The likelihood that Democrats will win the White House in three months improved “significantly” this week when Harris replaced Biden as the party’s 2024 presumptive nominee, but Republicans “have more room for error,” according to University of Wisconsin-Madison Elections Research Center director Barry Burden.
“Before Biden’s departure, Democrats were clinging to the three ‘blue wall’ states in the Midwest as their mostly likely and maybe only swing state path to victory,” Burden told the Washington Examiner. “Although Trump lost both the popular vote and the Electoral College vote in 2020, he is still advantaged. He only needs to flip two or three of the states that Biden took from him four years ago to be victorious again.”
In a memo this week, Harris campaign Chairwoman Jen O’Malley Dillon, who served Biden in the same capacity, contended Harris remained in a “tight race” with Trump despite Democratic enthusiasm.
“We continue to focus on the blue wall states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania — and the Sun Belt states of North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona, and Nevada, where the vice president’s advantages with young voters, black voters, and Latino voters will be important to our multiple pathways to 270 electoral votes,” Dillon wrote.
In a separate briefing this week, Priorities USA, the Democratic Party’s largest super PAC, shared its first “snake chart” with Harris and Trump, a graphic that ranks the states they are most likely to win so the battlegrounds are in the middle. That chart considered Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Nebraska‘s 2nd Congressional District to be toss-ups, with Trump likely to win Arizona and Georgia.
“We’re focused in our work specifically on Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, which we have in this forecast as the tipping point state, Nevada and Arizona,” Priorities USA deputy executive director Nick Ahamed said. “As we’re thinking about our investments across the five states and updating our resource allocation, it’s looking exactly the same as it was last week.”
Excluding Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, and conceding Georgia to Trump, Harris is expected to win at least 226 electoral votes to Trump’s 251, according to 270toWin’s “consensus” Electoral College map. If that continues for 100-odd days, Trump only has to win Pennsylvania to win 270 electoral votes and the presidency or any two of the other aforementioned states. In comparison, Harris cannot win the White House without Pennsylvania.
Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin are the states to watch, according to University of Maryland Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement Director Michael Hanmer.
“I have a hard time thinking the Democrats can win in Arizona, Georgia, or North Carolina without also getting at least two of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin,” Hanmer told the Washington Examiner. “One caveat is that the [vice president] pick, for example, Sen. [Mark] Kelly from Arizona, might help in some places and allow slippage in those three key states.”
Inside Elections editor and publisher Nathan Gonzales agreed that Arizona may become “more a part of the discussion” if Kelly becomes her running mate.
“But even with Kelly on the ticket, the easiest path might still be through the upper Midwest,” Gonzales told the Washington Examiner, adding it was easier “because she’s not an 81-year-old incumbent.”
“We’re still a few days into Harris being the presumptive nominee and her coalition might look a little bit different than what Biden’s did, but she has already at least energized the Democratic base in a way that Biden could not,” Gonzales said.
Sabato’s Crystal Ball managing editor Kyle Kondik concurred that Harris’s map is similar to Biden’s, “at least to start,” though he placed more emphasis on Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
“I would still be surprised if Harris could win if she lost any of Michigan, Pennsylvania, or Wisconsin,” Kondik told the Washington Examiner. “That said, one thing I am looking for is whether polling points to a different road. Generally speaking, Biden had been holding up better in the Industrial North than the Sun Belt. Does Harris change this at all?”
“Because Trump is still on the ballot, I’m expecting a lot of continuity with the patterns we saw in 2016 and 2020,” he said. “Presumably, if she restored Democratic margins among black voters — and I was always skeptical of that shift toward Republicans anyway — but still lagged with Latinos, that might mean Georgia and North Carolina would be more attractive than Arizona and Nevada. But, again, it’s too early to say.”
Here is a closer look at the 2024 election’s battleground states:
Michigan, with 15 electoral votes, was a political firestorm for Biden, with problems for him emerging among black voters, union voters, and Arab and Muslim American voters, particularly after the introduction of his electric vehicle policies and amid the Israel-Hamas war.
Only two polls have been conducted of the Trump-Harris race in Michigan, with Trump edging out the vice president by an average of 1.5 percentage points, according to RealClearPolitics.
Pennsylvania, with 19 electoral votes, may prove a challenge for Harris, with Republicans, namely Senate candidate Dave McCormick, amplifying her past comments on policies, such as fracking, a key issue in the Key Stone State.
“It’s too early to tell whether Harris’s net gains among younger voters or voters of color compared to Biden are negated by losses with rural white voters who are not going to be excited about a Democrat from California topping the ticket,” Gonzales, of Inside Elections, said. “You have to have a combination of an excited base that turns out and appealing to voters in the middle. Harris could boost turnout in the Democratic areas, but she can’t get clobbered in the rural areas.”
Five polls have been conducted of the Trump-Harris race in Pennsylvania, with Trump having a larger average 3.6-point lead over the vice president.
The last Rust Belt state, Wisconsin, with 10 electoral votes, was Biden’s most favorable state, regardless of Republicans hosting their convention there, with a similar situation unfolding for Harris.
Only three polls have been conducted of the Trump-Harris race in Wisconsin, with Trump having his smallest margin over the vice president, an average of 0.7 of a point.
Democrats have won Nevada, with six electoral votes, at the presidential level since former President Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign. But before Biden stepped aside as the nominee, he was looking likely to lose the Silver State, in part because of the economy and Trump’s appeals to its Latino population.
“This is a place where Trump’s gains with Hispanic voters has manifested itself,” Gonzales said. “Some are communities that might be more affected by the economy or the economy has not been as strong as what they want, [they are] voicing disapproval with the current administration.”
Only three polls have been conducted of the Trump-Harris race in Nevada, with Trump having an average 9-point advantage over Harris.
Elsewhere in the Sun Belt, Biden surprised pundits when he won Arizona, with 11 electoral votes, in 2020, the first time a Democrat had done so since former President Bill Clinton in 1992 and before that Harry Truman in 1948.
“Arizona is somewhat similar to Nevada in that gains with Hispanic voters was benefiting Trump,” Gonzales said. “But Harris and the Democratic ticket have an opportunity because Arizona is a fast-growing state with growing suburbs, [but it is] a place where they’re going to have to deal with the immigration and border issue as well.”
Only three polls have been conducted of the Trump-Harris race in Arizona, with Trump ahead of the vice president with an average of 6.4 points.
Georgia, with 16 electoral votes, was the state Biden won with the smallest margin, again the first Democrat to do so since Clinton in 1992, thanks to support from the Peach State’s black community and Republicans who did not want to cast a ballot for Trump.
“Even though we’re three months away from the election, I don’t think states like Georgia are off the table for Harris, but Biden won Georgia very narrowly against an unpopular incumbent, and for much of this race, Biden was then the unpopular incumbent,” Gonzales said. “So between black voters in Atlanta to suburban voters who aren’t excited about Trump’s style or who he is, there’s an opportunity for Harris, but I think she’s digging out of a hole that Biden dug for her.”
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Four polls have been conducted of the Trump-Harris race in Georgia, with Trump an average of 4.5 points in front of the vice president.
North Carolina, with 16 electoral votes, was the state Trump won with the smallest margin. Only one poll has been conducted of the Trump-Harris race in North Carolina, with Trump dominating the vice president by an average of 9 points.