Where the Race Stands After Democratic Convention and RFK Jr. Endorsement

Last week was the Democratic National Convention, but Robert F. Kennedy Jr. also dropped out of the presidential race and endorsed Trump. As for their effect on polls, these two events appear to have canceled each other out in terms of influence on voter sentiment, as the first round of polls in the battleground states since last week’s events remain hotly contested with no clear favorite.

The latest two polls come from The Hill/Emerson, conducted from Aug. 25-28 with between 720 and 1,168 likely voters per state, and Fox News, conducted from Aug. 23-26 with around 1,000 registered voters per state. The Fox News poll surveyed southern Sun Belt swing states, while the Emerson poll covered all seven likely swing states.

Both polls found similar results in Georgia and Nevada. In the Emerson poll, Harris led by one point in both states and in the Fox News poll, Harris led by two points in both states. However, Trump currently maintains a slim lead in these states in the RCP Average, ahead by 0.3 points in Georgia and 0.6 points in Nevada.

In North Carolina, both polls also found Trump ahead by one point. Although a few other recent polls found Harris leading in the state, Trump holds a 0.9-point lead in the RCP Average in North Carolina.

The polls only disagreed in Arizona, where the Emerson poll had Trump up by three points over Harris, while the Fox News poll found Harris ahead by one point. The RCP Average for Arizona also shows that the race is effectively tied, with Trump up just 0.2 points.

In the northern Rust Belt states, the Emerson poll found Harris leading by three points in Michigan, the race tied in Pennsylvania, and Trump ahead by one point in Wisconsin. In the RCP Averages for these states, Harris leads by 2.2 points in Michigan and by one point in Wisconsin, while the race in Pennsylvania is nearly tied, with Trump holding a mere 0.1-point lead.

Based on the results of these two polls, the states that were split or tied – Arizona and Pennsylvania – could be the deciding factors. If all the other states voted the same way as these polls, Trump would need to carry both states to win the election in November, but if Harris took either one, she would win. 

The current RCP No Toss Ups map has Trump in the lead based on the RCP Averages, which show him with a slight edge in key swing states. However, all his leads are less than a point, indicating a very close race. Before the Democratic National Convention and Kennedy’s endorsement, the race was similarly close, with neither candidate holding more than a two-point lead in any of the swing states as of Aug. 19, the first day of the convention.

The Emerson poll also looked at other statewide races in the swing states. Similar to previous polls, it found that in the Senate races in Arizona, Michigan, and Nevada, the Democratic Senate candidates led by a large six- to 10-point margin. In Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, the poll found that the Democratic candidates still led but by smaller margins of one point and four points, respectively. In North Carolina, they also polled the governor's race, where Democrat Josh Stein led Republican Mark Robinson by six points, despite Trump leading by one point in the state in the same poll.