The Wall Street Journal on Friday released the results from a poll that surveyed swing state voters about the 2024 election. While the top-line numbers indicate a neck-and-neck race, the breakdown in a crucial swing state long enjoyed by Democrats is telling a different story.
The survey of seven states includes Nevada, which was won by Hillary Clinton in 2016 and again four years later by President Joe Biden. In both elections, former President Donald Trump narrowly missed notching a win but may finally get his wish, an outcome that would be all but certain to sink the prospects of Vice President Kamala Harris. After surveying 600 Nevada voters between September 28th and October 8th, President Trump leads his rival 47% to 42%, Politico reported, putting his lead just a hair within the poll’s 5-point margin of error. Other pollsters are sure to rush their own surveys into the field as they try to ascertain whether an upset is in the making.
Anchored by the liberal city of Las Vegas, Nevada has been the Democrats’ Sun Belt stronghold in presidential elections, last voting red in former President George W. Bush’s 2004 victory. The gambling epicenter is closing in on majority-minority status, meaning a majority of Vegas voters would identify as nonwhite. That number has only climbed in recent years, making Trump’s lead all the more remarkable and a stark reminder that, despite running against the first female presidential candidate of color to achieve a major party’s nomination, he is still doing exceptionally well within minority communities.
Nearly one in five Nevada voters identify as nonwhite Latino, according to the NALEO Educational Fund, a demographic that Harris is struggling to coalesce behind her candidacy. The L.A. Times reported on Friday that Harris, even as she leads comfortably in sapphire-blue California, is having a tough time closing the deal with the state’s large swaths of Latino voters. Much the same phenomenon may be occurring in Las Vegas.
Across all seven states, President Trump leads by one point, 46% to 45%. Both candidates are shoring up support within their parties where 93% of respective voters say they will support their parties’ nominees. Independent voters broke for Harris, 40% to 39%, underscoring the closeness of the contest. Elsewhere, Democrats have been ringing the alarm bells about traditionally blue states like Michigan and Wisconsin, both won by Trump in 2016 and then Biden four years later, which have now become hardened battlegrounds. The WSJ poll placed Harris’s Pennsylvania lead at 3%, a figure within the margin of error and one disputed by other polls showing a closer race.
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