Former President Donald Trump routinely declares he’s leading in the swing states “by a lot.”
His top pollster is backing that up via data with just days to go before the election.
Tony Fabrizio contends, “Trump’s position nationally and in every single Battleground State is SIGNIFICANTLY better today than it was 4 years ago,” saying the GOP nominee “holds the lead in 5 of the 7 Battleground States that account for over 270 Electoral Votes.”
Fabrizio points to public polling, via the RealClearPolitics average, to show his client is better off today than he was four years ago — and on the way to 287 electoral votes if those numbers hold up in the final count.
Trump was down 7.4 points at this time in the 2020 campaign; now he’s up 0.5 points against Kamala Harris in national polls.
And swing states show the same pendulum shift.
In Arizona, which was tied in 2020, Trump is up by 2.5 points.
A 0.4-point deficit in Georgia four years ago is a 2.4-point lead today.
Trump was down by 8.2 in 2020 in Michigan, but now the deficit in one of the two states in which he trails is a coin flip: 0.4 points.
North Carolina has moved from a 0.6-point hole to a 1-point lead. Nevada’s gone from a 4-point deficit to a 0.5-point lead. And Pennsylvania has also dramatically shifted, from a 4.2-point Biden lead in 2020 to a 0.8-point Trump edge today.
And in Wisconsin, where Trump’s down by 0.2 points, he was trailing Joe Biden by 6.7 points four years ago.
Many of these states were much closer than these polling averages suggested they’d be in 2020. And if 44,000 votes or more had flipped Trump’s way in Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin, he could have tied Biden in the Electoral College. Similarly, 34,000 Nevada votes, 82,000 Pennsylvania votes and 155,000 Michigan votes would have meant material change in the outcome.
Much of Fabrizio’s memo downplays overconfidence from the former president’s supporters.
He expects “a continual barrage of public polling and analysis — some positive and some negative,” saying it’s crucial not to “distracted by the media noise and remain focused on our closing message, persuading the few remaining undecided voters and turning out our base.”
“While the analysis of early and absentee vote returns in each state are promising, we know that the bulk of President Trump voters will vote on Election Day. So, our continued efforts to turnout our voters are crucial,” he says.
The Post sought to get some clarity on the question of whether Trump may have cannibalized Election Day voters with more of an early push, but the campaign didn’t offer immediate comment.
