LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — They don't call Nevada a swing state for nothing.
A recent series of polls has shown that while Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris has closed the gap here with former President Donald Trump, she has yet to close the deal with Nevada voters.
Nevada — which has voted for the Democratic candidate for president in every election since 2008 — is neck and neck now, polls show.
That means every single vote matters to both Harris and Trump — and explains why both candidates make frequent stops in the Silver State. (Harris will visit Sunday, and again on Oct. 10, while Trump was most recently in the state on Sept. 13 and 14.)
Here's a look at some recent polls and where Nevada stands in each:
Noble Predictive Insights: The poll of 812 registered voters also included 692 likely voters, or those who tell the pollster they will most definitely vote in the upcoming election. The margin of error was 3.72 percent for that group.
In that group, Harris leads by one percentage point — 48 percent to 47 percent — in a head-to-head matchup with Trump. But the candidates are dead even when third-party and "none of these candidates" are included in the question — 47 percent each.
(The poll included Green Party candidate Jill Stein, who was stricken from the Nevada ballot by a state Supreme Court ruling this month. Stein, however, got 0 percent support in the poll.)
The poll also found nonpartisan or "other" voters evenly divided between Harris and Trump at 43 percent each, with another 14 percent undecided.
Notably, the poll found Harris up by 6 percentage points in Clark County and up by 1 point in Washoe County. In 2020, President Joe Biden won Clark County by 9.4 percentage points and Washoe by 4.5 points, while Trump won in every rural county in the state. Biden won Nevada by 2.39 percentage points that year.
The Hill/Emerson College swing state poll: This poll asked voters who they expect will be president, regardless of which candidate they personally support. It found the race in Nevada had tightened since August, when Harris led Trump by 1 percentage point, 49 percent to 48 percent.
This month, both candidates are tied at 48 percent each.
That poll also found Trump ahead in Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, with Harris leading in Michigan and North Carolina. But neither candidate's lead in any of the states exceeded the poll's margin of error, which ranged from 3 percentage points to 3.3 percentage points.
Trafalgar Group: Harris is leading Trump 45.3 percent to 43.5 percent in this survey conducted mid-month. (The poll has a margin of error of 2.9 percentage points.)
The survey also found Democratic U.S. Sen. Jacky Rosen leading Republican Sam Brown, 48.2 to 40.4, a result consistent with other Senate surveys.
NV 24 General 0913 Report by aroberts.news on Scribd
Averages: Nevada is also very competitive in polling averages conducted by various groups.
- Real Clear Politics, for example, lists Harris as ahead in the Silver State by just 0.4 percentage points. The site recently did a deep dive into polling numbers here, concluding that of all the Sun Belt swing states, Nevada appeared most likely to go with the Democrats in November.
- The New York Times polling average lists Nevada as evenly divided at 48 percent for both Harris and Trump, and shows her leading in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan. Trump leads in North Carolina, Arizona and Georgia, according to the Times. (In no case is a candidate outside the margins of error, however.) Harris leads nationally by 2 percentage points, 49 percent to 47 percent over Trump, the Times average says.
- FiveThirtyEight.com's average gives Harris the largest margin nationally, leading Trump by 2.6 percentage points, 48.4 percent to 45.8 percent. In that average, Harris leads Trump here in Nevada by half a percentage point, 47.3 percent to 46.8 percent.
The bottom line? The 2024 election is still extremely close, and either Harris or Trump could win, depending on how voters come down in the handful of swing states, including Nevada. And that's a big change from this summer, when Trump was leading Biden by 3.1 points nationally, and was ahead in every swing state.
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