Kamala Harris Trails Behind Joe Biden’s 2020 Polls in All but Four States

Kamala Harris’ average polling numbers are behind what President Joe Biden’s were during the same period in the 2020 election in all but four states, according to available figures.
Polling aggregation website 270toWin shows that as of November 1, the vice president is ahead of Biden’s November 2, 2020, numbers in Arkansas (40 percent to 35), Colorado, (53 to 52), Maryland (61.3 to 60) and Oklahoma (40 to 39). Harris, like Biden in 2020, is at 48 percent in Kansas. The vice president improves Biden’s poll average score in Nebraska’s 2rd District by 3 points. The 2020 and 2024 percentage point differences with the Republican candidate mostly follow a similar pattern.
It must be noted that November 2 was a day before Election Day in 2020, while most of the most recent 2024 polls were published four days before November 5 at the latest.
The polling aggregator did not disclose average polls available for the states of Alabama, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Wyoming.
Polls underestimated Trump’s actual support in both the 2016 and 2020 races. While Biden was correctly predicted by forecasters such as 538 to defeat Trump in the 2020 race, the Democrat did so with a smaller margin than expected in a number of key swing states such as Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
The 2024 race between Harris and Trump is still considered a toss-up, with polls suggesting all seven battleground states that could determine who wins the election are essentially tied. Harris’ poll numbers being behind what Biden’s were in the seven key swing states could be considered a warning sign for the vice president’s hopes of victory over Trump.
Newsweek has contacted the Harris and Trump campaigns for comment via email.
The states where Harris has improved her numbers on Biden’s will not necessarily help the vice president in getting the 270 Electoral College votes needed for victory.
A minor improvement in Maryland, a Democratic stronghold that has not voted for a Republican presidential candidate since 1988, will still just get the vice president the 10 electoral votes she was expecting to win anyway.
Similarly, a 1-point improvement in the deep red state of Oklahoma may just mean Harris loses the state by a slightly different 30-something-point margin on November 5.
The poll numbers this year could also be affected by the fact that pollsters are attempting to ensure that they do not misrepresent Trump’s supporters again when they conduct their 2024 surveys, including accounting for more voters without a college degree who tend to favor the Republican.
The New York Times’ Nate Cohn recently said pollsters may still be wrong in 2024 as those who are less politically engaged, and therefore likely to take part in surveys, may overwhelmingly back Trump come election time.
“As hard as they may try, they will never properly represent politically disengaged voters, and they will therefore never show enough support for Mr. Trump—at least when those disengaged voters decide to vote, as they tend to do in a presidential election,” Cohn wrote.
“While it’s reasonable to say things might be better for pollsters, the worst-case scenario still remains: There is no reason to assume pollsters can reach the least politically interested voters in sufficient numbers, and there is plenty of reason to think they will back Mr. Trump in November,” he added.