Kamala Harris is now in a tight race with Donald Trump in four Sun Belt states where President Joe Biden was struggling just before he dropped out of the race, according to a Fox News poll released Wednesday.
The vice president had a narrow lead, within the margin of error, against Trump in Georgia, Arizona and Nevada while the former president had a similarly slight edge in North Carolina in a poll that came after the Democratic convention and suggests momentum in her campaign.
The poll comes as the vice president was at the start of a bus tour of rural Georgia with her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, in hopes of repeating Biden’s 2020 win in the battleground state.
Trump’s campaign quickly dismissed Fox News for “atrocious” polling in a statement that said the candidate is ahead of where he was in 2020 in Arizona, Nevada, North Carolina and elsewhere.
The Fox poll, conducted Aug. 23-26, found Harris up among registered voters by 1 percentage point in Arizona and 2 points in Nevada. It said Trump was ahead by 1 point in North Carolina.
Previous Fox surveys showed Biden trailing Trump by 5 or 6 points in each Sun Belt state.
The new poll found that Trump has lost 6 percentage points of support among white evangelical Christians in Sun Belt states since he ran in 2020, dropping from 83 percent to 77 percent. His support among Black voters, however, nearly tripled, from 7 percent to 19 percent.
Harris’ improvement in the poll for the Democratic ticket is driven by a large margin — 79 percent — among Black voters, a key demographic where Biden’s support had eroded since 2020 and whose support, particularly among women, is key to a Democratic victory.
In down-ballot races in Arizona, Nevada and North Carolina, Democratic candidates hold big leads in the Fox poll.
In the Arizona Senate race, Democrat Ruben Gallego leads Republican Kari Lake by 15 points. Democrat Jacky Rosen is ahead of Republican Sam Brown by 14 points in the Nevada Senate race. In the governor’s race in North Carolina, Democrat Josh Stein leads Republican Mark Robinson by 11 points.
The Fox battleground polls surveyed 4,053 registered voters with a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points for each individual state. The combined sample has a margin of error of plus or minus 1.5 percentage points.
