Morning Consult Poll Shows Harris Gaining Ground in Swing States

Just a month ago, the presidential race was completely different. Since the first presidential debate, which occurred on June 27, there have been what could’ve been a year's worth of political events in just four weeks. This dizzying pace of change may be impacting polls as well.

On Tuesday, a Bloomberg/Morning Consult poll, conducted from July 24-28 with 700-800 registered voters, was released with conflicting results. The results that strayed from previous polls the most were in Michigan, where the poll had Harris up 11 points in the heads-up race against former President Trump and 12 points when third parties were included. Before this poll, three polls had come out in the past month in the state: one that had Harris and Trump tied, one that had Trump up one point, and one that had Trump up two points.

This 11-point lead for Harris was greater than her lead in two other polls from solidly blue states, Oregon and New Hampshire. One from Hoffman Research (R) in Oregon, conducted from July 24-26, had Harris up only five points, while Biden won the state by 16 points in 2020. Another from WHDH/Emerson College, conducted with 1,000 registered voters from July 26-28, found that Trump was only up four in the state, where Biden won by 7.4 points in 2020.

In Michigan, Biden won by a smaller 2.8 points, and before Biden dropped out and endorsed Harris, Trump led in the RCP Average for the state by 2.1 points. This latest Morning Consult poll might reflect completely changing election dynamics, or it might have been an anomaly with the respondents to the Morning Consult poll in Michigan.

The latter argument is supported by the other states the Consult poll polled, which found the election in other swing states was much tighter, although they also had Kamala doing better than previous polls.

In Arizona, the poll found that Harris was up two points, 49%-47%, in the two-way race, and four points in the five-way. In Georgia, it found that Trump and Harris are tied in both the heads-up and five-way races. In North Carolina, the poll had Trump up two points in the heads-up and one in the five-way. In Nevada, Harris was up two points in the two-way and tied in the five-way.

The states with results most similar to previous polls were Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, where Trump led by four points in the heads-up and two points in the five-way in Pennsylvania, and Harris led by two points in the heads-up while Trump led by one point in the five-way in Wisconsin. The RCP Average in Wisconsin has Harris and Trump nearly tied, with Trump only up 0.2 points, and in Pennsylvania, Trump holds a stronger 2.7-point lead in the RCP Average.

If the five-way poll results from the Bloomberg were the final results in November, and all other non-swing states voted the same way they did in 2020, the Trump/Vance ticket would receive 264 electoral college votes, and the Harris ticket would receive 252 votes, with another 22 being undecided since Nevada and Georgia were tied.