Donald Trump still leads Vice President Kamala Harris in the race for Arizona’s 11 electoral votes, but the new Democratic nominee is reversing the former president’s fortunes with key voting blocs since taking over for Joe Biden at the top of the ticket.
That’s the takeaway from a new survey of 1,003 registered voters from Noble Predictive Insights, which shows the former president with a 3-point lead in a head-to-head battle in the Grand Canyon State, capturing 47% to her 44%.
Trump’s three-point lead in the two-way contest matches the results of Noble’s previous survey, which was conducted in May when Joe Biden was the Democratic nominee.
Yet while the lead remains static and well within the margin of error, the numbers offer new indications that the race is more dynamic now than it would have been with Biden.
Whereas 15% of those polled were undecided when Trump and the Biden were on the ballot, just 9% say they can’t make up their minds now.
And that seems to be good news for the incumbent party, with the pollsters noting that the new ticket has re-energized Democrats, possibly prompting “wayward” Dems who didn’t like Biden to return to the fold.
To that end, Harris has consolidated support among a trio of groups that are essential to her having any shot in November: independents, Latinos, and young voters.
“Harris has captured meaningful leads among key voter blocs in August – some of which were Trump’s advantages in May,” the pollsters observe.
While Trump led Biden by 10 points with independents in August, Harris now leads the ex-prez by 5.
She’s also erased a 2-point lead Trump had with voters under the age of 35 — she’s now 11 points ahead of him in that cohort.
With Latinos, she’s taken Biden’s 2-point advantage and stretched that to a 12-point lead.
“People are happier about the major party options now that Biden is gone,” observes Mike Noble, the founder and CEO of Noble Predictive Insights.
“Almost every poll is somewhere between Harris +5 and Trump +5,” said David Byler, NPI Chief of Research. “That suggests an almost tied race. We give a small edge to Trump in this poll – but, with more than two months to go, either candidate could win the state.”
The race in Arizona has also undermines the so-called “double hater” theory that dominated the Trump-Biden matchup, in which voters would be forced to hold their noses and vote for who they disliked least.
The double-haters declined from 15% down to 10% from May’s survey to August’s, with 92% of Trump backers voting for their candidate rather than against the Democrat.
On the other side, 86% of Harris voters are motivated by positive feelings for the candidate, though roughly 20% of independents, moderates, and men voting for Harris are in fact voting against Trump as their primary intention.
The Noble poll runs counter to FiveThirtyEight’s average, which shows Harris 1 point ahead of Trump in the Copper State.