A new poll released by The New York Times on Sunday indicates that former President Donald Trump is positioned for a nearly certain victory in the Electoral College, despite a narrow national lead. The New York Times/Siena College poll, conducted from Sept. 3 to Sept. 6, shows Trump leading Vice President Kamala Harris by 48% to 47%, within the margin of error.
According to the responses, Trump's advantage in the Electoral College gives him a 99.7% chance of winning the presidency if the election were held today. This is largely due to his growing support among white voters, where his lead has doubled from a 7-point margin in 2020 to 14 points in 2024.
The poll also revealed that Trump and Harris are statistically tied in seven critical battleground states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
In comparison, The New York Times had Hillary Clinton ahead by 2% in September 2016 and showed Joe Biden with an 8% national lead in 2020. This is the Times' first nationwide survey since Harris formally accepted the Democratic nomination at the party's convention in Chicago. In its previous poll, Harris led Trump 49% to 46%.
Mediaite's Kipp Jones reported a strong reaction from both sides of the political spectrum:
Nate Cohn with the Times questioned whether Harris had “stalled” after what he called a “euphoric August” in which her new candidacy grabbed all the attention away from Trump. In July, the former president was grazed in the ear by a would-be assassin's bullet. He also appeared comfortably ahead of President Joe Biden in numerous polls before the 81-year-old dropped his reelection bid.
Cohn assessed Sunday's survey could be an outlier, and a former aide to Harris, Mike Nellis, dismissed the implications of the result, saying the election right now is “a coin flip.”
But such caveats did not assuage concerns among some that Harris is in trouble, and that Trump's continuing support in any amount is enough to give them the ick.
The New York Times polling in the 2020 presidential election, like many other media outlets, showed Joe Biden consistently ahead of Donald Trump in key battleground states, though the margin of Biden's lead was often larger in the polls than the actual results on Election Day.
For example:
–Wisconsin: The New York Times/Siena poll showed Biden with a lead of 11 points, but he ended up winning the state by less than 1 point.
–Florida: Polls indicated Biden had a small lead, but Trump won the state by about 3 points.
–Michigan: Polls showed Biden with a lead of around 8 points, and he won the state by about 3 points.
Overall, The New York Times and other polls correctly predicted Biden's victory but often overstated his margin of victory in key swing states. This discrepancy was part of a broader polling error seen in the 2020 election.
