Kamala Harris is favored to win three of the four key states she brought back into play after replacing Joe Biden, new polls show.
The vice president leads Donald Trump in Georgia and Nevada by two percent, in Arizona by one percent and is behind in North Carolina by one percent.
These four states seemed out of reach before President Biden dropped out of the race in favor of his vice president on July 21, but Democrats may now win them.
Polls by Beacon Research and Shaw & Company Research for Fox News, conducted after the DNC and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. dropped out of the race, showed Harris redrawing the electoral map over the past month.
Kamala Harris is favored to win three of the four key states she brought back into play after replacing Joe Biden.
Biden needed to win all of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania to remain president, all of which seemed to favor Trump.
“These results show that Harris has succeeded in expanding the electoral map,” said pollster Chris Anderson in his analysis for Fox News.
‘When Biden was the front-runner, the only path to an electoral college victory for the Democratic ticket was to sweep the blue wall states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
“This is no longer the case with these Sun Belt states that are in play.”
Michigan and Wisconsin now appear safe for Harris, but Pennsylvania could go either way, increasing the importance of states like Arizona and Georgia.
The Beacon/Shaw poll showed how much Harris improved prospects for a Democratic victory that had seemed dim after Biden’s June 27 debate disaster.
Beyond the headline numbers, they showed how Harris boosted Democratic support among Black and Hispanic voters (which declined markedly for Biden), as well as better numbers among young people and even among Americans over 65.
Previous Fox News-sponsored polls from earlier this year showed Biden trailing Trump far behind in every state, to the point where polling was much less frequent.
In June, the rate fell by five percent in both Arizona and Nevada, by six percent in Georgia in April, and by five percent in North Carolina in February.
These four states seemed out of reach before President Biden (pictured Saturday) dropped out of the race in favor of his vice president on July 21, but now Democrats may win them.
The new poll results mirrored those of the 2020 election, where Biden only lost North Carolina and all results were by fewer than 100,000 votes.
The poll is one of the first since RFK Jr. dropped out of the race and endorsed Trump last week, and while three-quarters of voters who said they had a favorable opinion of him backed Trump, the full effect of his exit remains to be seen.
Harris improved her support among Black voters over Biden to 79 percent, 56 percent among Hispanics, 55 percent among those under 30 and 51 percent among voters 65 and older, all averages across the four polls.
Women preferred Harris by 11 percent, men backed Trump by the same proportion and independents favored Harris by six percent.
Voters surveyed said the economy (41 percent), immigration (14 percent) and abortion (13 percent) were the biggest issues for them.
Arizona was the outlier, with just 37 percent ranking the economy first and were instead slightly more concerned about immigration and abortion at 16 percent each.
Health care and “election integrity” ranked a distant fourth and fifth as concerns, with voters favoring Harris.
Donald Trump is now on the defensive, defending states he seemed to have under his control
Trump led Harris on who voters thought would better handle the economy, 53% to 45%, and was far ahead on immigration, 57% to 41%.
Harris was more trusted on her abortion issue, but dropped 44 to 52 percent on her handling of the Israeli invasion of Gaza.
The question is whether Harris can maintain and build on her improved poll numbers now that last week’s Democratic National Convention is behind her.
“Campaigns see a spike in poll numbers after their convention and that usually dissipates over the next month, and that could be what’s happening here, but this is not a traditional campaign,” Anderson said.
‘A lot of people thought Harris got a boost after Biden dropped out, but that has lingered.’