From the New York Times, I'm Michael Balborough.
This is the daily a major new poll from the Times finds that Vice President Kamala Harris has transformed the 2024 presidential race and is now leading President Trump in three of the most crucial battleground states.
Today, my colleague Nate Cohndenhe explains why Harris is benefiting so much from being a new face in an election that so many Americans had dreaded.
It's Tuesday, August 13.
Nate, the Times has just completed our first poll that seeks to understand the state of this presidential race since Biden dropped out and Kamala Harris took his place as the democratic nominee.
Everyone understands that that has changed this race.
But this poll attempted to measure by just how much it changed the race in three of the most essential swing states.
So tell us about the results.
Well, we found that the entry of Kamala Harris into the race has fundamentally upended this contest.
We pulled Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, arguably the three most important battleground states.
These are three states that voted for Obama in 2012, Trump in 2016, and then flip back to Biden in 2020.
But that Trump had generally been leading in the polling so far this cycle.
And if Kamala Harris won all three states, she would almost certainly win the presidential election.
And the poll found Harris leading Donald Trump in all three states by a four point margin, 50% to 46%, a.
Huge swing in favor of the Democrats in a very short period of time.
Basically, what this poll found was that she was a game changer in those three states.
That's right.
And it is worth saying it's all on the Harris side of things.
Donald Trump's ratings are essentially unchanged since the last time we pulled these states.
In fact, his favorability rating ticked up a little bit.