Vice President Kamala Harris has taken a four-point lead in national polling after independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was removed from the survey model, according to aggregator Nate Silver‘s Silver Bulletin website.
Silver was the founder of ABC News’ FiveThirtyEight polling analysis site, but parted ways with ABC last year. His latest average shows Harris with 48.8 percent of the vote and Donald Trump with 44.8 percent.
“Like everything else about his presidential campaign, Robert F. Kennedy’s withdrawal from the presidential race was weird,” Silver wrote.
He said that Trump has gained slightly more than Harris from the change, but the vice president still leads by four points, having received a much larger polling boost following the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
According to Silver’s model Harris leads Trump in battleground states as well as nationally. She leads in Arizona (46.6 percent to 45.1 percent), Michigan (48 percent to 44.6 percent), Pennsylvania (47.7 percent to 46 percent), and Wisconsin (48.9 percent to 45.5 percent).
However, Trump leads in Georgia 47.5 percent to 46.8 percent and the race remains tight in North Carolina, with Harris at 46.8 percent and Trump at 46.5 percent, and Nevada, where Harris edges out Trump 46.2 percent to 45 percent.
If November’s election perfectly reflected Silver’s latest poll results, with each candidate winning the states where they currently lead the polls, Harris would win the Electoral College and the presidency even if Trump won the two most tightly contested states, Nevada and North Carolina.
Newsweek contacted the Harris and Trump campaign via email on Sunday morning for comment.
The Democratic presidential ticket has seen a dramatic reversal in the polls since President Joe Biden made the unprecedented decision to drop out of the race on July 21 and endorse Harris.
Trump had previously been leading Biden in all seven of the swing states: Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Nevada, Georgia, North Carolina, and Arizona. Before Biden quit the 2024 race for the White House on July 21, Trump had also made gains in traditionally more Democratic-leaning states like Minnesota, New Hampshire, and Virginia.
Harris, now formally the Democrats‘ nominee, has surged in the polls—leading Trump in national and swing state polling averages, as well as pulling even in betting odds markets, where Trump had led Biden since May.
While polling has shown that Kennedy Jr.’s supporters are likely to lean toward Trump’s campaign with the independent out of the race, Scott Jennings, a onetime adviser to former President George W. Bush, said Friday night on CNN that Kennedy Jr.’s reputation could “cost” Trump’s chances with some voters come November.
“Look for whatever benefit you get…there could be some cost on the other side of the algebra,” Jennings said during an appearance on The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer.
“I mean, I’m old enough to remember when RFK was a liberal conspiracy theorist,” Jennings continued. “Now he’s more of a conservative conspiracy theorist, but the through line is he’s a conspiracy theorist, and a lot of people think he’s kind of a loony tune. So, I would just caution the former president be a little careful here,” he added. “Don’t make any promises you can’t get out of.”
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