Are Southern Swing States Secure for Trump?

Over the last few presidential elections, some formerly reliable Republican states, such as Georgia and Arizona, have joined the swing state mix. The latest round of polls, however, indicates that they are likely to continue supporting Trump in 2024.

The most recent New York Times/Siena poll, conducted Sept. 17-21 with between 692 and 713 likely voters per state, found support for Trump in the “Sun Belt” states. The poll found Trump leading by 5 points in Arizona; in the previous NYT/Siena poll, conducted Aug. 8-15, Trump was trailing by 5 points during the first wave of “Kamala-mentum,” about three weeks after she entered the race.

Despite Trump’s 10-point swing in Arizona from the last NYT poll, Republican Senate candidate Kari Lake remains behind. She has slightly narrowed the gap, now trailing by 6 points, compared to 9 points in the previous poll against Democratic Senate candidate Ruben Gallego. Trump is currently performing 6.8 points better than Lake in the RCP Average in Arizona,  leading by 2.2 points while Lake trails by 4.6 points.

The poll also covered North Carolina, where controversy surrounds the governor’s race. On Thursday, CNN reported that Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson referred to himself as a “black NAZI!” and “perv” on an online pornography website’s message board more than a decade ago. Robinson has since denied writing those posts. The NYT poll, conducted before and after this news broke, found Robinson trailing his Democratic opponent, Josh Stein, by 10 points. In the RCP Average for the North Carolina Governor’s Race, Stein leads by 9.5 points. Trump fares better in the state, leading by 2 points in the poll and 0.4 points in the RCP Average.

The final state the NYT poll looked at was Georgia, where Trump holds the same 4-point lead as in the previous early-August NYT poll. In the RCP Average for Georgia, Trump leads by 2 points.

Another poll over the weekend suggested that another southern state, Virginia, could be in play. The poll, conducted by the University of Maryland with 756 likely voters, found that in the head-to-head race, Harris led Trump by 2 points and by 1 point in the multi-way race. Previous polls showed a greater lead for Harris, as the current RCP Average has Harris up 4.5 points in the state.

The other Sun Belt swing state not included in either poll was Nevada. The latest The Hill/Emerson College poll in the state, conducted Sept. 15-18 with 895 likely voters, found that Trump and Harris were tied. The current RCP Average for Nevada shows a similar result, with Harris leading by 0.2 points. However, in the Senate race, Democratic incumbent Jacky Rosen leads Republican candidate Sam Brown by 7 points in the poll and 8.8 points in the RCP Average.

In previous elections, many of these states were solidly red. In 2012, for example, Romney won Georgia by 7.2 points and Arizona by 9.1 points. However, after both states supported Trump in 2016, they flipped to supporting Biden in 2020 by a narrow margin – 0.2 points in Georgia and 0.3 in Arizona. Although Trump currently leads by 2 or more points in the RCP Average, any significant events or news related to the presidential race over the next two months could still change the final results in these southern states.