On Monday, CNN senior data reporter Harry Enten noted that Republican nominee Donald Trump is performing better in swing states compared to his 2020 run. According to a New York Times/Siena College poll, Trump holds a 5-point advantage over Vice President Kamala Harris in Arizona, with narrower leads of 4 and 3 points in Georgia and North Carolina. Enten highlighted that these numbers are “significantly better” than Trump’s standing in similar polls from 2020, which bodes well for his 2024 campaign.
“You’ve got a lot of red on this screen, this is pretty good news for Donald Trump… You take it all together in these three key battleground states, two of which [President] Joe Biden carried 4 years ago, we see that Donald Trump is ahead and by an average of 4 points, significantly better than he did back in 2020 across all of these states,” Enten explained.
Enten also mentioned Harris’ narrow 2-point advantage in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, emphasizing a “great divide” between the Sun Belt states and the Great Lakes region. He credited Trump’s growing support from a more racially “diverse” base for the improved numbers in Sun Belt states, with his non-white voter support increasing from 16% in 2020 to 20% in 2024.
“If you know anything about those Sun Belt battleground states, it’s that they are more diverse than those Great Lake battleground states,” Enten said. “In the Southwest, they’re more Hispanic than they are nationwide, in the South, Southeast, North Carolina and Georgia, they are more African American than they are nationwide. And I think the real question here is, what does this mean for the electoral map because that’s what we’re all interested in and look folks, it’s just as tight as it can possibly be.”
Enten shared a sample electoral map, which shows Harris winning 276 to 262 if the Great Lakes polls prove accurate. However, based on Trump’s past underperformance in 2016 and 2020 swing state polling, Enten suggested that Trump may do better than current numbers suggest in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan.
