Swing state shift: Harris and Trump locked in fights on new battlegrounds

Before President Joe Biden exited the presidential race, the majority of polls pointed to a win for former President Donald Trump in battleground states. That may no longer stand now, as Vice President Kamala Harris is the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. 

In most swing states, Harris is putting up a strong fight against Trump. Sunbelt states such as Arizona and Nevada, and the southeastern swing states of Georgia and North Carolina seemed like a lost cause for Biden. However, Harris’s new campaign has put those states safely back in play.

Arizona

According to a recent poll from the Hill/Emerson College, Harris is polling 3 points behind Trump at 46% to 49% in Arizona. It’s an increase from Biden’s polling in the race where he averaged 40% of the vote in Arizona.

Still, Harris has been making strides with moderate, possibly John McCain-era Republicans in the state. Harris has the endorsement of four prominent border mayors in the state, all while Republicans look to pin border policies from the Biden administration on her, as well as the endorsement of John Giles, the Republican mayor of Mesa, Arizona’s third largest city.

Once a solidly Republican-leaning state, Arizona has moved to the left in recent years with a blue wave during the 2022 election, producing a Democratic governor, attorney general, and secretary of state as well as Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ). The GOP, which once strongly held both of Arizona’s senate seats for years, has not won a Senate race there since 2018. Biden won the state in 2020, marking the first Democrat Arizona voters sent to the White House since former President Bill Clinton in 1996.

Democrats are also hoping an abortion ballot initiative will shore up support this election cycle in Arizona.

Georgia

In 2020, Biden narrowly flipped Georgia blue by a little more than 11,000 votes, marking the first time the state voted for a Democrat for president since 1992. Democrats are relying on a renewed sense of enthusiasm surrounding Harris to keep Georgia blue this election.

According to data from the U.S. Census, more than 33% of Georgia’s population is black, which is the highest percentage among this year’s battleground states and a key voting bloc in the Democratic Party.

According to a Hill/Emerson College poll, Harris is polling just 2 points behind Trump, with Harris gaining 46% to Trump’s 48%.

“I have not seen this much excitement amongst the Democratic base and Democratic coalition since Barack Obama,” Tharon Johnson, an Atlanta-based political strategist who has worked for Democratic candidates in the state, told the Wall Street Journal. “This is the most excitement we’ve felt in Georgia over the last decade.” 

As vice president, Harris regularly visited the state, announcing investments in the Peach State and visiting historically black colleges and universities. Her campaign has 24 offices and 170 staffers in the state so far.

Harris and Trump both recently held campaign events at the same Atlanta venue just days apart, drawing stark comparisons between the crowds that support each candidate.

Nevada 

Trump is currently polling just one point ahead of Harris at 46% to 45%, according to a recent 538 poll. Throughout Biden’s campaign, Trump was consistently ahead of him here. 

Now, Harris is making strides with black and Latino voters in the state. Nevada has the third-highest-growing black population in the country as of 2022 and Harris has held more than 50 events, according to the Nevada Independent. More than 3,000 Nevada residents have signed up to volunteer for the Harris campaign, according to the Washington Post.

After Biden exited the race, Nevada’s secretary of state reported an uptick in voter registration in the state, with 6,000 new Nevadans registering to vote in July. Around 4,000 of those registered with a nonpartisan affiliation.

Many voters in the Las Vegas area, the state’s population center, are undecided as the city relies on the service and tourism industry while facing high unemployment rates. Trump has tried to appeal to service workers in Nevada with his new “no tax on tips” campaign promise.

North Carolina

Harris has seemingly closed some of the gap between Biden and Trump in North Carolina, now entering her third week of the campaign. 

Before Biden suspended his reelection bid, Trump led in North Carolina, 47.2%-41.5%, according to a RealClearPolitics poll. A recent Bloomberg-Morning Consult poll, however, showed Trump leading Harris in the state by 48%-46%.

A Democratic president has not won the state since former Obama’s historic win there in 2008, but Democrats have had their eye on it with a gubernatorial election there this year.

Highlighting the importance of the state, Gov. Roy Cooper (D-NC) was previously among the possible picks for Harris’s running mate but took himself out of the race amid fears that Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson would declare himself acting governor if Cooper was campaigning with Harris.