Depending on the numbers you choose to consume, it’s safe to say the race between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris is somewhere between toss-up and lean-Harris. Since their only debate, there hasn’t been a poll released — even polls with Trump ahead — showing anything other than improvement for Harris and problems for Trump.
In particular, Harris has closed the gap on Trump’s key issue advantages on the economy and the border. While Trump is still seen as stronger on these issues, his leads over Harris are lower than they were when voters were comparing him and President Joe Biden.
Take the poll that I have the most confidence in: the NBC News survey overseen and conducted jointly by the bipartisan team of Republican Bill McInturff of Public Opinion Strategies and Democrat Jeff Horwitt of Hart Research. Harris has also flipped some personal attribute questions that were negatives for Biden — like on having the ability to be president or having the mental and physical capacity for the job. At least in the NBC News poll, Harris now leads on those physical and character attributes when compared to Trump, areas where Trump led before and after the June debate, Trump led, benefiting from the comparison to an older opponent instead of the younger Harris .
Then there’s the issue of abortion rights. While it was an asset to Biden in polling against Trump, it appears to be a much bigger advantage for Harris. For instance, the NBC News poll showed her leading by more than 40 percentage points among white women with college degrees, a group of voters Biden won in 2020, but by a significantly smaller margin. Now, do realize — subgroups like white women with college degrees in the have margins of error that are at or close to double digits in the NBC poll. So even if there’s a 10-point error rate on this specific group, it would still mean Harris’ lead among this specific subgroup of female voters is 20 points, much more than what Biden or Clinton got among these voters in their campaigns against Trump.
Of course, in 2020 and 2016, Roe v. Wade was still law of the land. The first presidential election since the Dobbs decision could lead to some significant, conventional wisdom-changing realignment of the vote by gender.
Now, it isn’t all gains for Harris. The big change in the Trump electorate both from 2016 to 2020 and this time around is his level of support among Latino voters. In 2016, Trump lost the Hispanic vote by nearly 40 points, according to the exit poll. In the 2020 exit poll, he lost that group by just over 30 points. And in this new NBC poll, Harris’ advantage was just under 20 points.
Essentially, Trump’s loss of previously GOP-leaning women has been offset by formerly Democratic-leaning, working-class Hispanic voters coming his way. It’s clear Trump is going to perform better with Latinos than he has done in either of his first two runs. What we don’t know is how much better he’ll do. Will he get to the 40% mark, a number a Republican presidential candidate hasn’t reached since George W. Bush in 2004. In a scenario where Trump wins, I’m betting he is closer to 40% than 30% among this specific group.
These are among the most important known unknowns we have when examining this race by the numbers. We know there’s going to be a major gender gap, but which candidate overperforms with their weaker gender? And we know Trump’s going to do better among Latinos than he has before — but how much better? It could be the difference between Trump carrying a state like Arizona or even North Carolina by a point versus losing it by a point.
At this point, it’s safe to say we have a good idea of how the vote is going to break down demographically. What we don’t know is how intense the turnout will be among these various groups.
Take the gender gap. It’s obvious at this point that Trump will win men by close to double digits, ditto with Harris among women. The question is how well each candidate does with their weaker gender. For instance, in 2016, Trump won just 41% of women, but because Clinton only won 41% of men, she didn’t gain enough of advantage through women’s higher turnout to win. But in 2020, Biden did better among men (45%) than Trump did among women (42%). That wider gender gap helped Biden secure a fairly decisive electoral college victory.
Working from a result backwards, a Harris victory likely means her advantage among women is greater against Trump than either Biden or Clinton. And a Trump win likely means he was able to neutralize his problems with women voters by getting more men to show up and keep his advantage among men closer to his 2016 performance.
Those demographic unknowns also fit the four basic issues that this race will be about over the next five weeks.
Trump is hoping that the country’s concerns about the border and economy matter more than the country’s concerns about his character or his party’s handling of abortion rights. The pocketbook voters are benefitting Trump, while the character voters are benefitting Harris.
And I’d argue it’s a tad more granular on the economy than simply Trump versus Harris. What the country is sour on is “Biden’s economy.” How do we know this? Just look at the disparity between Biden’s ability to handle the economy versus Trump and compare it to what voters perceive about Harris’ ability on the economy versus Trump.
While Trump led both on the question of being better able to handle the issue, his lead over Biden was 22 points on the economy earlier this year; his lead over Harris is just 9 points in the new poll. Almost on cue, the Trump campaign has been hammering Harris on TV over “Bidenomics” in a new series of economy-targeted ads. It features Harris praising “Bidenomics.” It was the first evidence I’d seen since Harris became the Democratic nominee of an actual strategy from the Trump campaign.
If this round of advertising helps Trump re-expand his lead over Harris on the issue of handling the economy, don’t be surprised if Harris has to do something a lot more public to separate herself a bit more from Biden, be it on the economy (though it’s not obvious what she’d do or how she’d do it) or the border (where I do see an opportunity for her, but it would require her to admit this White House didn’t get it right at first). It would be a bit self-critical, but it would virtue signal to the small group of vacillating independents that she won’t wobble on the border, a fear Trump is trying to stoke.
Keep in mind: “Biden’s vice president, Kamala Harris,” was not a popular figure. But many voters have seen “Vice President Kamala Harris” as a fresher candidate, including those who previously viewed Trump as a better steward of the economy.
This also could be why Harris does want another debate. It’s not just another opportunity to get a favorable split-screen on character standing next to him, but the large audience would also give her an opportunity to talk to those skeptical voters who soured on Biden but don’t like Trump. There are still double-haters are out there, but it’s the original Biden-Trump double-hater voter that Harris still needs. Most of those voters can be found among the self-described “independent” voters. Trump only won independents in 2016, and he lost them in 2020. In the latest NBC News poll, he’s also losing them to Harris. But this is a very fluid group, and they aren’t all instinctively left-leaning.
For most of this short campaign, I’d be describing this race as “Trump’s to lose, but Trump was losing it.” Now, I’d describe the race has a jump ball with a slight advantage to Harris, simply because she has room to grow still.
But it is still a race to define Harris with these remaining undecideds. So far, Harris is winning the battle to define herself. Can she keep that up another five weeks?
She certainly has the financial resources to do it, and it’s iffy whether Trump has the discipline to execute the type of campaign he needs. But Trump has defied expectations before, and it’s worth noting that his floor is higher than hers right now. On a bad day, he’ll still be sitting at 47%, and that can be a winning number of enough voters skip the race or vote third party. Harris has a higher ceiling but she may have a slightly lower floor, at least in a few of the key battlegrounds.
Why the battle for the Senate is already stretching into 2026
Barring an unforeseen event in Montana or a major upset in either Florida or Texas, it appears Republicans have essentially check-mated Democrats in their goal of taking the Senate.
Given the twists and turns this campaign season has already delivered, nothing should be seen as a given. But the closest we have to a given right now is that Republicans are likely to nab control of the Senate. The only question is whether they end up with as few as 51 seats or as many as 54.
And that difference between 51 either 53 or 54 is the difference between Democrats having a chance to win back the Senate in 2026 or whether they have to wait until 2028 or even 2030.
The three Senate races where Democrats are spending the most money on right now are all defensive campaigns to shore up seats they already hold: Maryland, Ohio and Pennsylvania. And even if the win all three, they will likely come up one seat short of holding their majority. The reason? West Virginia is all but a done deal, with GOP Gov. Jim Justice sailing to an easy victory for the seat currently held by Democrat-turned-independent Joe Manchin.
And as I hinted at earlier, Montana has taken a decisive turn in the GOP’s favor. Democratic Sen. Jon Tester is trying to portray himself as independent from his national party, but unlike Manchin, he doesn’t really have the voting record in this Biden era to credibly claim distance from the national party. And it appears this simple association may be enough to tank his bid for a fourth term. The non-endorsement of Harris may not be enough for Tester either.
That would spell doom for Democrats’ Senate majority. But limiting their losses to just Montana and West Virginia would preserve a credible chance to win back the chamber in two years.
In theory, the 2026 map does present Democrats with a few more opportunities than this one did, as there are 20 GOP-held seats up in 2026 compared to just 13 for the Democrats. But it’s one thing to flip one or two Senate seats in 2026 and a much taller order to flip three or four. This is why, at this point, one should view Ohio, Maryland and Pennsylvania as essentially the first round of Senate races to determine just how competitive the 2026 cycle will be.
Two GOP-held seats up in 2026 stick out: Maine and North Carolina. After those two, there isn’t an obvious target for Democrats to find a third or fourth pickup opportunity. Maybe Iowa? Maybe Texas? Kansas? Alaska? As you can tell, the pickup list thins quickly for Democrats.
And it’s not like Democrats won’t be playing ZERO defense in ‘26. They will have difficult seats to defend in the perennial battlegrounds of Georgia and Michigan, plus New Hampshire, Colorado and Virginia, which all could be more competitive if incumbents don’t run.
Bottom line: for Democrats to have legitimate chance to win back the Senate in the near future (assuming they do lose it this cycle), they will need to go 2-1 at a minimum in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Maryland. And if they go 3-0 in those races, all the better for them in two years.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
