“…
The election, of course, is decided in the swing states. But there, the polls suggest Harris is also banking a sizable advantage heading into Election Day.
Polls from Marist, CNN, Fox News and USA Today-Suffolk University show that her leads among those who say they’ve already cast ballots look like this:
- Arizona: 9-12 points
- Georgia: 7-10 points
- Michigan: 26-39 points
- North Carolina: 2-6 points
- Pennsylvania: 17-35 points
- Wisconsin: 22-60 points
The only state where a major, high-quality poll has shown Harris actually trailing among those who have already cast ballots is CNN’s poll of Nevada, which shows Trump leading by six points.
… All of these margins pale next to Biden’s leads in late 2020 polls of the same states. But again, they’re much closer to 2016. Hillary Clinton had only a
slight lead among early voters in Arizona and Nevada, for instance. A late poll in Michigan showed her margin there at
27 points. And a late Siena poll of North Carolina showed her ahead by
nine points among early voters.
… But the sum total is that it looks as if Harris will at least go into Election Day with a substantial lead banked among those who have already cast ballots. It’s good for Republicans that this margin doesn’t appear close to as large as it was in 2020, but it’s still a substantial lead that they’ll have to make up.
They did so in 2016, when
many wagered that the early vote was among the many strong signs for Clinton.
Maybe the lesson is that we should just wait and see.”