Polls inching toward Harris in presidential matchup

(The Center Square) – Vice President Kamala Harris averages a 1.8 percentage point lead across that nation for the race to the White House.

Among battleground states, however, the spread between Harris and former President Donald Trump remains razor thin, according to Real Clear Politics polling averages.

In Nevada, Harris and Trump are deadlocked. In Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, the vice president leads Trump by 1.4 percentage points, 1.1 percentage points and 0.5 percentage points, respectively.

In Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina, Trump clings to leads of 0.5 percentage points, 0.2 percentage points and 0.6 percentage points, respectively.

The seven battleground states represent 93 electoral college votes, roughly one-third of the 270 needed to win the White House.

In eight of 10 national polls , Harris bests Trump between 1 and 4 percentage points, continuing the momentum that closed the 9-point gap President Joe Biden struggled to close before he dropped out of the race on July 21.

On Sept. 2 of the past two presidential election years, the RCP average showed Biden up 7.2 percentage points over Trump in 2020 and Hillary Clinton 3.9 percentage points ahead in 2016. In the popular vote, Biden prevailed 51.3%-46.9% in 2020 and Clinton 48.3%-46.2% in 2016; in the electoral college tabulation, Biden beat Trump 306-232 and Trump bested Clinton 304-227.

Harris formally accepted the Democratic nomination for president on Aug. 22, promising to move the country forward past “bitterness, cynicism and divisive battles.”

During a week of glowing praise at the Democratic National Convention, party supporters pointed to the vice president’s humble beginnings – as a child born to immigrants in Oakland, Calif., who worked at McDonald’s while pursuing a bachelor’s degree at Howard University – as the bedrock of her commitment to supporting the middle class and protecting reproductive rights.

But the rosy characterization wasn’t always so for Harris, who many critics believed incapable of stepping out of the long shadow of Biden’s economic and national security policies amid skyrocketing inflation and U.S. involvement in wars in Gaza and Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Trump – who accepted his party’s nomination on July 18 at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee – has billed himself as a political outsider and the target of an establishment bent on lining their own pockets.

Seven of the 10 polls in the RCP average were conducted across periods that included days after the convention. In all but one, Harris enjoyed a 1 to 4 percentage point lead.